Daily Grind

Wake up around 8-9am, get a quick breakfast together of yogurt or milk and muesli with some extra raisins, coconut, and nuts thrown in. Drink a mug of tea. Lather everything visible in sunscreen, get my gumboots on and head out for morning work. Water the seedlings, feed the chickens, pick up the few morning eggs. Then off to the main morning work - weeding, planting, pruning, irrigation, organizing a shed on rainy days, whatever the day's fancy. Lunch time rolls in about 1pm, usually dinner leftovers; time for a wee break for reading or internets, and then back outside just after 2pm. Afternoon fun of more of the same and then check the chooks for eggs and pile them in the chiller. The Araucanas are in a separate run - they lay fantastic green eggs - and are currently occupied as lawn mowing chickens. Not quite as thorough as sheep, but they do a decent job. Knock off work around 5pm, hang about the house, have a beer, maybe read or do some yoga; dinner around 7-8pm; maybe a movie after. Bed around 11pm.

Nothing to get your blood pressure up. Wittle away the days, clean out a shed. "What's that bag of ...?" "Blood and bone." "What?" "Ground up blood and bone from rendering; put it on the strawberries for fertilizer." Yummy. Sorry vegans. SOL.

Vegetables!

= Happiness! And I have arrived at a vegetable farm. Finally. I spent another 4 days in Amberley along the beach, tearing down a fence (all by myself), and enjoying coffee and yoga and picnics along the water. Then I began my trek south to Timaru. Along the way I stopped at an auto shop to get new windshield wipers since the ones that were on the car actually made it harder to see when it rained. I brought my entire wiper into the shop to get the right size. The girl asked if i need to replace everything or just the blade. I opted for the blade of course, being cheaper, and she just said to cut them to the right length. Seemed simple enough. Did that. Then I had to get the wiper back on. The last (and first) time I replaced my blades in the states the auto guy sold me the entire set and put them on for me (said it was standard service; guessing he figured I had no idea anyway, which I didn't). So I tried to summon the memory of watching him do it for me... and about 40 min later I finally had my new wiper blades on the car. Luckily I didn't have to ask for help. Next stop was a gas station to get air. I've done that tons of times in the states, should be no problem. The air hose has a pressure gauge on it, which should make things easier because then you don't need your own. But it took me another 10min of staring at it and pretending to add air to my tire to figure out the partial release mechanism that gives you the pressure reading for a split second. No tires exploded on my trip south, so I think things are in working order. Now all I have to do is duct tape my right headlight in place so it doesn't disconnect when I go over bumps.

Life in Timaru at Aroha Organics is grand with Nath and Steph. We're right off the Main South Rd and one farm property over from the ocean. I've been trying to think of something that goes on here for every letter of the alphabet, but I get lost around i or j. (much easier to write it out)

Almonds, apples
Bee stings
Carrots
Dok (sp? nasty weed)
Eggs
Fish and chips & Flight of the Concords
Garlic
House (as in the show) and hazelnut trees, honey
Irrigation
Juggling, courtesy Rush, usually with...
Kiwifruit (we just eat it)
Lemons
Mustard (used as living mulch between the strawberries)
Noel (daddy Jack Russell terrier)
Onions
Pumpkins, pears, peaches, plums, peas
Queen bee... missing from one of the hives
Raspberries
Strawberries
Treehugger Organics (Nath & Steph's brand)
UV rays (getting quite bronzed)
Van (decked out in bright purple and green, hippie style)
Wwoofers (lots coming through here)
Xrays - Steph got hit by a bastard driver
Yoga outside in the grass
Zoe (the girl dog of the bunch)

I got stung by one of the queenless bees 4 days ago on the right side of my forehead. My right eye is still swollen, though some antihistamine is helping (works a lot better than the pills). These honey bees are ferocious - they go all anarchy and aggressive when they don't have a queen. Luckily only one of the hives is in this situation. They attacked me twice when I was planting onions (two days in a row), after which Rush and I gave up and worked elsewhere. Bees don't usually attack. They make stellar honey, some of which gets made into HoneyHaze (a spread of 30% hazelnuts, 70% honey) - pretty close to heaven.

There are a number of chickens and one duck here. They like to be free range, as in out of their cages. There are several breeds and the eggs range from brown to white to green. The green ones are really cool. There's also a rooster around, so we float the eggs before cracking them, lest we find a chick fetus on the pan! (Fertilized eggs float)

I'll be sticking around here for a few weeks, then probably south again to see Fiordlands.