Well hello there

Oh hey stranger!!  I am writing this post because it feels like it has been awhile since I have done a real one.  Since Christmas time I have been sort of floating around a bit, staying with a couple of friends, and wwoofing at a farm I didn't really like.  One of the friends I visited was a french wwoofer friend of mine, who's boyfriend is an Outward Bound instructor here in New Zealand.  The school is located in a really beautiful spot out in the Marlborough Sounds and had kayaks and bikes that we could use.   I spent a couple of days kayaking, bike riding, and making feta cheese from fresh goat milk.  It was really fun.  The school was also at the end of the Queen Charlotte Track, a popular tramping trail, so I took three days to do that trail.  After that, I arrived at the farm I am currently at.  It is an orchard that produces blueberries, plums, table grapes, and kiwis.  They are completely organic and have been for over 20 years.  It has been good to see how people can make a living with only 6 acres of land.  I just spent the last two days working the farmer's market with them and it was just lovely to see how the community supports them.  They are a super fun couple who at one point took a sailing trip from the west coast of the states to New Zealand.  I will be really sad to leave in a couple of days.  I just have some pictures from my hiking trip on the Queen Charlotte Track.

View from the first climb

Kiwi!!  Just kidding - this bird is called a Weka but when you first see it you think KIWI.  Then you realize kiwi's are super shy and only come out at night, doy.

Sunny day

Not so sunny day - my pictures from the second day look almost black and white

Stick bug

Started with 71 km - this is the last one.

Plane Tickets and Hippy Fesitvals

I just bought my plane ticket home.  I am flying in on April 9th.  I am really excited to see everyone - so let's plan parties/potlucks/game nights/climbing trips/bike rides/crafternoons/long walks on the beach!!  Oh my.
Right now I am on a farm that, to be honest, I don't really enjoy.  They are really nice people but don't really have a drive to live an organic lifestyle, so right now I don't really feel like I am learning anything.  I am leaving in a couple of days to visit a friend and to walk the Queen Charlotte Track (a popular trail in the Marlborough Sounds).  I am really excited about this festival I am going to called Luminate.  It is an eight day festival where there is live music all day and night, but what I am really excited about is there are workshops each day about permaculture, natural healing, yoga, qi gong, and more.  Then for the month of February I am planning on setting wwoofing aside for awhile and just traveling around the south island.  Short post - mainly wanted to update you on my coming home plans.  Cheers!!

Kiwi Christmas

I left the farm I had been at for a month and a half to travel to the North Island for Christmas.  While I was at Wilderland, my friend Jess invited me to spend Christmas with her family, so I took her up on her offer.  Her Dad is Kiwi and her Mom is an American from Iowa.  Their whole family had traveled to America and Canada several times.  They own and operate a farm that has deer (about 1000), cattle (around 200), and sheep (around 600).  So it's a pretty big farm.  Before I came to New Zealand I had no idea that deer was or could be farmed.  Turns out they have been farming deer in New Zealand for around 40 years.  You have to have quite tall fences.  My first day there, I watched while they divided a mob of deer in two in order to separate out males that needed to be de-velveted (so the males don't kill each other, you have to remove their antlers or velvet).  To separate animals and to move them, using farm dogs is basically a necessity.  They have four farm dogs that are used to move the different herds of animals.  I found it amazing to watch.  They have to act a little bit differently depending on which animal they are herding.  Like with deer the dogs hang way back not to scare them too much, but with bulls they run right at their heels and if they don't move fast enough they nip at their heels.  I got to watch a home kill of the lamb we ate for Christmas Eve dinner.  I think I could do the butchering and skinning but I am not sure if I could do the actual cutting of the throat.  It was delicious, if you were curious.
As for Christmas traditions being different from the United States.  It was quite similar - food, family, games, and a little bit of day drinking.  What is different about it was that December is summer in New Zealand, so  Christmas day was warm and beautiful.  We were eating outside and had to move the tables out of the sun because it was too hot.
Over the Christmas holiday I also learned how to felt.  If you don't know what it is, you lay out wool then saturate it in warm soapy water and agitate it and the wool fibers shrink together to make a fabric.  I made a hot water bottle cover, a sunglasses, case, and a case for my ipod.

Here are the felted items that I made

Close up of my ipod case

 Now I am sitting in a McDonald's using their free wifi internet, willing myself not to buy a soft serve ice cream cone.  If it wasn't so cold in here I would probably have one already.  For some stupid reason I booked my ferry back to the south island at 2:30 in the morning.  I am guess it was like $5 cheaper.  Right now I have no idea what my next farm will be.  I was going to write people from the farm I was staying at over Christmas but when I got there, they only had dial-up internet.  It wouldn't even load the wwoofer website.  So I wrote a few people and hopefully will have a farm to go to soon.  I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas.  Cheers to 2013.
 Here are some pics from the farm I left before Christmas and travels around that area.

Feeding the calf

The three calves together

Picking strawberries

Largest freshwater spring in New Zealand - extremely clear water

This beach reminded me a lot of the Oregon sand dunes

Some sea creatures