WWOOFing in New Zealand: Saturday 5 January 2013
First off, I’m sorry I haven’t posted these past few days. It’s been rough trying to find time to blag and get on the internet. Many adventures have happened in the past few days so stay tuned as I upload a post for each day. :)
BTW, I’m writing the date the way the rest of the world does. 05-01-2013 is the January 5th, 2013, not May 1st, 2013. It saves time and confusion to do it this way.
Something odd that I’ve noticed about being here is that I don’t really mind getting up in the morning. Maybe it’s because the roosters start their alarm a couple of hours before dawn, (so I’m already half awake), or I always sleep well since I’ve worked hard, or I actually look forward to the day and working. Whatever it is, I hope it keeps me getting up in the morning on time.
Host had me moving piles of uprooted sedges (Carex sp.) to larger piles. Boring tedious and hard work. While I was working in that part of the yard, I noticed that there is a Dawn Redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides). This tree is native only to China but it is the closest relative of the Giant Redwood (Sequioadendron giaganticum) and the Coastal Redwood (Sequioa sepmervirens). It has leaves that look just like the Coastal Redwood, but are deciduous. The bark isn’t quite as thick and furry either. It’s more papery and thin. It was a pleasant surprise to find this tree, knowing one of it’s close cousins is just half a world away in the home in my heart.
After I finished piling the sedge clumps, Host had me go over to her mum’s yard to pull up some grasses for bunny food and to pull some weeds that were encroaching from the golf course. They called the plant “Bind Weed” (I presume because of the way it’s vines snake up anything remotely sturdy), but it looks just like a morning glory. It is almost certainly in the Convolvulaceae family. The work was very satisfying and I actually felt like I was accomplishing something. The Goats (Batman and Robin), ate what I pulled and were delightful company. A chicken also discovered that I was clearing ground so it followed me to munch on grubs and kept me company while I worked. For a minute there, I felt like it was just another weekend event doing restoration work for the Natural Resources Club at Humboldt State, my undergrad university. I got an intense craving for one of Doug’s veggie burgers, and made myself sad. I will probably never have one again. The Goats and the chicken were there to comfort me and I got back to work. A British family visiting the native plant nursery talked to me about the goats, asking if they really do eat anything. From what I have observed in three days here, the answer is yes. Host confirmed this in part. They will eat anything, but not always. Sometimes they resist the urge to eat whatever is put in front of them, but not often.
I was given a brief interlude to my work when Hosts’ mum asked me to pick some strawberries from her garden. I warned her that I would probably eat some, and she didn’t object. They were very small but deliciously tasty. In the Northern Hemisphere, strawberry season has already come and gone, but down south it’s just starting. There are few fruits in this world that I love more than strawberries. I am perfectly content to have two seasons in a year with these delicious aggregates.
After the strawberries and bind weed, Host had me help her collect a few more pallets from the hardware store for the walkway that goes over a stream and leads up to the upper pasture and vegetable gardens. I helped her hitch a trailer to her SUV and off we went. After that we picked up timber from the recycle center that had been reclaimed as people threw it out. It was being resold at good prices and Host said we would make vegetable begs in the shade garden structure that I cleared the day before. After that was loaded into the trailer, we visited a brewery to get leftover grain from the beer making process to feed to the pigs. Host knows that there is little nutrition left in the mush but she said they might get something out of it, and it’s free. The brewer and host agreed she could do a pick up every Tuesday and Wednesday.
At lunch we discussed the differences between gun control in New Zealand and America. Apparently the police inspect citizen’s guns on a regular basis and make sure they are locked securely in a safe. You have to either have a need for a gun or be a collector to apply for a license. They do a through background check and ask for references to make sure you are not unstable. In light of the recent gun problems in America, I would say New Zealand has a much better control over their gun users. Host didn’t want to know the details of the Connecticut tragedy, but she did confirm that mass shootings do not ever occur here.
After I headed to the beach but I was too self-conscious to go in the water all the way. I started reading Dan Brown’s novel that came out when I was last in NZ in 2009. I remember having a derisive conversation with pre-bf, ex-bf in a Coromandel book store. He was excited to read it, but I was definitely not. Having already read his other four books I was pretty sure I figured out his writing formula and didn’t care for another go around: Robert Langdon gets laid by a beautiful smart intellectual woman, betrayed by someone he thought was a friend, and discovers a mysterious secret which turns out to be a metaphor for human nature using symbols, history and his vast intellect. Oh nostalgia. That was the best time of my life those four weeks. Anyway, the book was already taking predictable turns toward the obvious conclusion. I’m bored and I’m only 50 pages in.
Dinner that evening was excellent. Sausages, potatoes, giant flying saucer shaped squash divided between three of us, and broccoli with CHEESE SAUSE. SO GOOD. There was a tv program on when we arrived about a famous British tv personality trying to get back into horse riding. The kind where they do jumps in stuffy uniforms. Both Host and her mum were fascinated and didn’t turn it off when we started to eat. It was interesting because I knew nothing about the sport and everything they said was something to learn. I wasn’t overly pleased that we kept watching it as we were eating, but I’m not about to say anything. The strawberries I picked earlier that day were for dessert with shortbread and tea. I definitely don’t have anything to complain about food while I’m here. Post dinner I went to bed almost instantly. I was pretty pooped.
