City Girl on the Farm (Day 2) April 17, 2008

After possum hunting, what more could I expect to get out of my trip to an operating New Zealand sheep farm? Little did I know that we had arrived on “crutching” weekend. Crutching is when… God, what IS crutching? As far as I can tell, crutching is when you shave off a strip or so of hair around the behind of the famale sheeps.  This helps with hygiene to keep the flies away from items that might get stuck… however, it’s apparently also more to ease the job of the ram who will be visiting their pasture in about a week.

Ronnie lives and works on the 1400 that holds 3000 sheep and 500 cows. The sheep’s wool are sold at auction everywhere, until they’re about six year old and then they are sold for meat. The cows take apparently from 1 and 1/2 to 2 and 1/2 years until they are ready to be sold for meat. That day he was crutching about 450 sheep, and wanted to get them all done by lunch time so we took off right after breakfast.

On the way however, we ran into a few obstacles:

Once we got near the shed, Blair took me to a flat bit of meadow where he said I could try out the four wheeler for myself. He gave me some instruction, but I made him promise he’d stay on the back with me just in case.

 

Apparently,  Blair doesn’t keep his promise, as after a few meters I looked over and there he was running besides me!

 

Regardless, I got the hang of it! And I have to admit, it’s a little addicting.

Unfortunately, we had to get to work. Ronnie and his daughter had already started… They have heards separated into different stables, where they wait their turn to get crutched.

 Then once they’re in the closest pen, they have to get hearded into the line by the sheepdogs.

It can take a little effort, of course, but it all works out in the end and they’re in order waiting to be ‘crutched.’

I have to admit, that it reminded me all of the movie “Babe,” with all the commands and sheep running everywhere- just obviously minue the pig.

Of course, I had to try for myself. When asked for a review of how I did, I was told it was “decent for an American.” 

It can take forever just to shave a simple strip around the whole herds’ butt. And if you’re curious as to exactly how dramatic the results are, then here you go.  

Before:

After:

We finished the lot, with Sarah herding by command and Heidi hearding by generic noise. Ronnie did most of the crutching with Blair doing some light relieving. I, of course, was resident photographer. On the way back to the house, Blair and I took the scenic route, with me getting the grand tour of the farm.

If you can make out the slightly blue building to the slight right of the terrain, that’s where we were had been doing the shearing before we set off on a tour of the property lines. We made it back for lunch and cleaned up to pack for home!

I couldn’t have asked for a better New Zealand farm expereince….and in fact, when I returned to school one of the teachers who knew I was headed up there asked me how it was. When I replied enthusiastically that I crutched a sheep, she said ‘That’s more than I’ve ever done!’ So there you go- I’m more a kiwi than you’d think!

 

City Girl on the Farm (Day 1) April 15, 2008

Blair and Heidi have been talking of taking me up to ‘the farm’ since I’ve arrived, which is run by family friends. We decided that this would be a good weekend to go, and I had no idea what to expect. I’d be lying if I said that images of red roofed barns and something like Old MacDonald didn’t cross my mind.

Blair’s soccer season has started up and so we went to his first game. Regardless of the score- which shall remain a secret- the disposition was good as they headed for a local pub for traditional drinks. Although my drink was commented on when we got to the table as a little strong for that time in the afternoon, I couldn’t pass up a New Zealand staple of what they call RTD’s. RTD’s are pre-mixed, ‘ready to drink’ beverages. Jack and coke in the same bottle, people!

After, we headed up to the farm. We first stopped at Blair’s father’s house as we had driven to the soccer game separately and this was a place on the way out of town that we could drop off a car overnight. Blair’s father was away so we didn’t see him, but what I saw instead was an amazing view from the end of his drive! No wonder my grandparents from Hawaii said they considered moving here!

After consolidating cars, we were really off!

This was the puppy’s first long trip in the back of a truck and after a rough start:

 

he settled down. I did too, as it was a long windy two hour trip to the farm, and this time I was prepared with a common anti-nausa pill called “Sea Legs.” The bottle says “May cause drowsiness,” and I’ve decided that instead of any sort of anti-nausa medicine they’re just massive tranquilizers.

We left late in the afternoon so by the time we arrived to the farm it was dark. We stopped to let Rum out and could barely see the lights from Napier….

 

We arrived in time for ‘tea,’ and afterwards Blair took me out to experience possum hunting. Possums are a huge pest here but amazingly their fur is unbelievabley soft, and if you can catch enough (apparently around 20), you can get NZ $100/kilo! Ronnie (the farmer who runs the 1400 acre farm!) said a couple possums had been in messing up varying sheds across his property. So we took off to take a look.

We zoomed around tracks that Blair has been travelling on for the last twenty years. I could hear the river and feel temperature changes as our altitude increased, but other than that I was lost in the blackness. Blair was successful and I got my first experience of possum hunting! It feels a little weird to be smiling, but I did get handful of the soft fur to take back!

All in all a very eventful day- if only I knew what Sunday was going to hold!

Redwood Adventure April 6, 2008

This past Friday, I was able to join Room 8 along with four other classes from the school to go on a fieldtrip to a local redwood grove. They are located in Te Mata Park, at the base and more in the valley than Te Mata Peak- which is obviously a peak and on higher ground. The students were given strict instructions to wear their every day clothes and pack lunches and good walking shoes. They were also given a clipboard of activities to do once we arrived down in the redwoods, but first they would have to hike for about 25 to 30 minutes.  For some this was a challenge, but overall they did amazingly well.

We took the bus there, but they don’t have yellow school buses in New Zealand. The buses that we took are the exact same that ones that I was later going to take from Hastings to Wellington, just like a Greyhound. I sat next to an adorable boy from my class named Willie. We tried to play “I spy” for a little while, but it didn’t last long once I was reminded that he doesn’t know his letter sounds yet. (Him: I spy something that starts with D. Me: Dirt? Him: No. Me: um… driver? Him: No. Me: K, I give up. What? Him: Blake!)

We gave up and just took pictures instead.

One parent who was supposed to meet us there ended up going to the wrong “car park”- parking lot and never ended up meeting us- so I was able to take her group, which really only consisted of two boys- Caleb and Kavahn.

We went off walking and Caleb was the most inquisitive about things that we saw and/or heard. Everytime he wanted to ask a question or show me something he would call me name. But of course, the way he says my name is adorabe– it’s like it’s two syllables “Miss Ay-ch! I hear a bird!” With four classes of 25 or so children, and about 6-10 parents per class we were quite I sight to be seen walking through the trails.

It was a beautiful walk, and I was taking tons of pictures, of course for my own memories as well as to share with the teacher. Here is an example of my scenery.

I should have known that me snapping away would only intice the children, so when they asked if they could take my picture I felt like I couldn’t say no. I felt like how my mom must have when she would relate stories of me taking pictures when I was young. “Can you see me? Are you sure you can see me now??”

Not a bad shot of Miss H.

Once we arrived in a little grove, the children ate lunch, ran around collecting “treasures,” and completing the activity on thier clipboards before we had to head back to make the bus. I tried to take a video of Caleb  telling stories- first about some dangerous fishing grounds and then about his treasures. I turned the camera while recording and haven’t figured out how to edit the movie let alone really format it for my blog. But since I’d had request for a clip of their accents, this is the best I can do for now. I’m sure I’ll get much more advanced by the time this trip is over. You’ll just have to turn your head… I like at the end how he’s so excited about the fossils he found, yet no one is listening to him… so I’m nodding to him over the camera.

 

The fossils he found are in fact real. A parent from another class told me about how eons ago this whole place was underwater and it’s not uncommon to find fossils of shells through out the grove.

We walked outof the grove and returned to school hot and exhausted. It had been drilled into the students (and me) that there was no toilet at Te Mata so I had been very skimpy on my water intake and came back with a horrible headache. I figured it wasn’t going to be that big of a deal since I would just sleep on the bus I was getting on directly after school to head to Wellington for a weekend outing…. of course, that didn’t turn out the way I’d hoped. Read on…

Shopping on Sunday March 31, 2008

After our indulgent Saturday, we had some errands to do on Sunday- and that included shopping. Heidi was nice enough to take me to the farmer’s market as I had showed interest in attending. It runs in the local show grounds from 8:30-12:30 every Sunday. I really wanted to go since it also reminded of me when Mike and I went to the local University District farmer’s market back home. We got there at about 11:30 on what was another beautiful day! We made our way around the show grounds, with all the tents set up in a big circle.

There were plenty of new things to taste and try— apricot gin spread, for example, if I’d so chosen. The local dairy also had a tent there, which is another place on my list. Heidi says they sell a cheese that is some how made with ash of the volcanoes near by– you know, in the somewhat harder casings outside a creamy cheese? I don’t know what it’ called, but it’s dark because of the ash. Maybe I’ll get more information once I actually go there. They also had olive oils, wines, meat from local farmers and of course veggies.

There are lots of things that are familiar and others not so much.

I’m sure Heidi will be tired of me asking what things are, and their names as I’m always pestering her. She is also helpful in pointing things out or telling me tid bits, that would be ‘good for the blog!’ When I go back and write a blog about our day, I’m always asking random questions, too. (like, “Heidi, was it the male kiwis or female kiwis that grow taller?” or “Heidi, what was the name of that vegetable again?”) By the way, the things above are asian aubergines (or asian eggplants)-and yes, I did just stop typing to ask her. A lot of the things here are in fact similar, they just go by a different name.

The show grounds are actually beautiful and have a river flowing through. We came across a family trying to catch eels in the river. The young kids were very cute, with their accents and cardboard boxes that they thought they could scoop the eels up with.

You should be able to see the eel, as well. It’s kind of wrapped in an arch around the stick.

After buying some fresh veggies for the week we headed off to do the rest of our grocery shopping, and what I thought would be a routine experience was, of course, something new!

At the grocery store, I found a wall filled with the scanners like that we would normally have at our check out.

I immediately thought of Mike again… who is instantly more engaged by anything technological and I could clearly picture him running up and down the aisles scanning everything in sight. In fact, you have a membership card that you scan first and then whatever you put in your cart gets scanned as you go along. That way, when you arrive at the end, they only have to scan the scanner (I think. Bare with me.) and up come your total and out prints an itemized list. Also, there are random checks at the end to make sure people are actually scanning everything they’re taking, obviously to keep people honest. In that case they’ll rescan everything in your cart. If you get stopped for a check and something is off, then they will start scanning you more frequently to keep tabs- and obviously you pay the one with everything scanned. If you match up your totals over and over again, then your checks get farther apart.

Heidi’s scanning our bananas, which you weigh first and then a sticker prints out with the price. It was a blast.

After shopping we came home for a lazy Sunday and I got to have an hour and half video phone call with my mom using my laptops. It was great to talk and catch up…. but kind of just made me miss her and everyone more.

Tomorrow will hopefully be better- we are having parent interviews (think conferences) after school which should be interesting, and I’m going to go to the post office to pick up a package from Mike! I also read on Saamanta’s blog that she made me card… although it kind of feels like cheating to find out that way, but anything is nice to get.

Off for dinner soon… tarahiki, which is a local fish. and yummy!

Cheers!

Wine weekend March 30, 2008

So this weekend was great! Heidi is the best guide. After my first (half) week of school, I decided that this weekend it might be a good opportunity to go and see some of the local wineries. I would bet there are hundreds in the Hawke’s Bay area, but with Heidi’s local knowledge, we prioritized. We also invited along another American student teacher that Heidi’s colleague is hosting (but working at a different school). Her name is Adrienne- the same as my associate teacher, don’t get confused- and she’s from a University in Montana. She is hardcore and brought her bike over from the states! Anyways, we thought it might work for us to do some traveling together, but used wine tasting to get to know each other better!

So off we went. We grabbed a map of some of the hot spots and went off to have a lunch at our first stop.

It was Te Awa winery and ended up being one of my favorites.The food was great and the view was fantastic: see for yourself!

Afterwards, we were going to go try and catch a tour at the next winery, but when a local harvester offered us a ride after he caught us snapping away, how could we refuse?

Then it was off to a winery right next door, Trinity Hill, where we tasted, browsed and chatted. All of the tastings are free, and you can taste about 6-8 wines. By the time we left and went to the third, Adrienne said she needed a little bit of a break. I took full advantage of Heidi’s excellent driving and kept tasting. We arrived at Church Road estate seconds before a tour group- perfect timing. Then, the last stop of our afternoon was Mission- New Zealand’s oldest winery. And Look! I finally found a hobbit home!

Oh wait, it’s just a cellar door. Well, that’s not too bad either. We finished up our tastings, and I learned about why the soil is so good for growing wine in this region. There’s a river that flows near by but it actually had a different path prior to the big earthquake. After it shifted it left this amazing gravely river bed. The region is called gimblet gravels.

We tried to stop by the local chocolate factory on the way home, but it being after 5 it was closed… Pretty much everything closes at five except for the grocery store. (see next post!) There are more pictures from the winery with names and descriptions in my Week 1 set if you click the pictures to the right. unfortunately, I’ve decided that it’s impossible to upload them in the order I want, so you have to click on the sets to see the progression. Sorry, but it’s worth it!

I have to go to bed now in order to get ready for my first full week at Frimley; parent- teacher conferences and me leading a reading group, should be great!

Orchard home March 23, 2008

Today is my first full day as a Kiwi resident, so I took the time to explore my new surroundings. I’m living with another teacher from the school I work at and her boyfriend. The two of them rent a house on tons of orchard lands, so I went out exploring. It’s so beautiful! They grow kiwis, pears and apples. The pears have already been picked and the kiwis will need to be soon as well as the apples. The landlord takes care of all the maintenance, so we just have access to all the fruit but no responsibility! Perfect!

The kiwi orchard was my favorite, only because of the canopy the vines created. I thought it was mysterious and magical in a certain way!

Apparently, the male kiwi plants grow slightly taller so that when it’s time for pollination it’s easier for bees they to then pollinate the females. And also since the females are the only ones that product the fruit, their growing lower helps the pickers, since there’s no point in the males taking up the lower canopy and blocking the pickers from the kiwi fruit.

They also grow pink ladys here which are my favorite apple! $2 lb at the store now for free in my back yard. Tempting enough to eat right off the tree!

But DON’T!

The white marks are from the chemical sprays so they need a good washing first. Still, some how I think I’ll manage.

 

We also found a neighboring corn field where the corn was ready to be harvested. Heidi says that you can tell when they’re ready by when the cornsilk has turned dark. So we did them a favor and picked some corn. I’m going to be an awesome farmer yet!

Check out the many more pics by clicking on the right, and hopefully Flickr and I will have worked out our kinks by then. However, in order to see the pictures in the correct order you will have to go to the “Orchard Home” set.