I have not dropped off the face of the Earth

SO, clearly I have not been posting nearly as often as I meant to when I embarked on this crazy adventure. The availability of internet and time is touch and go on farms. Internet in New Zealand is quite a few years behind the U.S. (so slow!) and even when it's not it often feels more pressing to hike around looking at pretty things or chat with our lovely hosts. Currently I find myself operating more on farm time than Nick or Colin and am awake with nothing to do, so here goes.

THE UPDATE

Sometime after St. Patty's Day Colin and I spent a week with Pam and Mike in Oxford. They are a lovely and fascinating couple in their 60s who are setting up a farmstay and beef cattle operation. They are "Christians who worship in a Baptist setting." They and their community are wonderfully close and supportive and VERY Christian. I was consistently amazed at the number of people stopping by their house and vice versa on a daily basis. In such a rural community it seemed a real blessing. One thing I am a bit afraid of in a rural future is isolation, especially with the time-consuming and site specific nature of farming. But they gave me hope.
With one of the visitors/ees, I had my first conversation in support of sustainability with someone who does not believe in Global Warming, but does believe the apocalypse is coming quite soon. He and his wife gave us a tour of his house and a milking / butter making demonstration combo. He and his wife used to run a farmstay, but are now finishing up with the construction of their highly sustainable house in Oxford. It's passively solar heated as well as by the hot water (which is heated by solar panels on the roof) pipes that run through the beautiful polished concrete floor. They've saved space by having their bed fold out of a cleverly disguised closet in the living room. They have a cow and make their own butter with a hand crank butter churner. They cook with a beautiful wood stove that has multiple oven compartments. They have an extensive garden with delicious fruits and vegetables, which they preserve. They are working to be as self-sufficient as possible but for such different reasons than anyone I've ever met. It was such an eye opener.
Another friend of Pam and Mike's did all his business (or as much as humanly possible) without money - simply by bartering. He had found a community of other people who preferred to barter and they traded food, skills, car parts, whatever. His garden is beautiful! He was helping Pam get her garden started organically.
In addition to all this visiting and Bible chat (which Colin seemed to love), we also did some gardening, trim painting (green not white, Dad!), hiking, sauna sitting, and alpaca collecting. While we were there they picked up three alpacas (two of whom may be pregnant)to add some friendly pettable animals to the farm scenery. They are funny, spitting creatures!

After Oxford we ventured an hour away to Amberley, where we spent two weeks at The Food Farm. Angela and Nick are a couple in their 30s with three kids under the age of 6. This place was a little more hectic and a little less Christian. Nick is the head grower for a nearby vineyard and Angela does marketing for a variety of things (including the vineyard) in addition to being the chair of the farmer's market movement in New Zealand (which is apparently just getting off the ground). They also pick and sell figs at area farmer's markets and to restaurants during the 4-6 week fig season (which hectically coincides with vintage). They also grow much of their own produce and have ducks, chickens, geese, and sheep. We learned so much here about wine, gardening, poultry, child rearing, marketing, and the state of farming in NZ. Apparently, although New Zealand is ahead of good ol' US of A on many environmental issues (they are nuclear free, many places of roadside compostables pick up, GMOs can be experimented with, but are not allowed to spread their seed) farmer's markets are only just becoming an accepted way of selling your goods and CSAs are virtually nonexistent (there is one on the North Island, apparently). Most farms are a few hundred acres of grazing livestock and anything less than that is considered tiny. Maybe the idea of local, personalized food economies has taken off faster in the US is because the US is and feels so expansive, whereas New Zealand is a tiny country of 4 million people. Maybe in the US we craved that personal touch to our food transactions before New Zealand because in New Zealand things already feel closer to home.
Anyway, back into update mode. At the Food Farm we harvested figs and sold them at Saturday Farmer's markets (three different ones, a new one each week to spread the local fig wealth around). Angela and Nick have found that Kiwis in their area are unfamiliar with fresh figs, as they do not ship well, have a very short season, don't store well, and it is only recently that a variety has been found to ripen in the colder climate that is found as far south as Canterbury. Fresh figs are delicious! So the crux of their marketing technique is to get as many people to taste figs at the market as possible. It seems to work they sold out every time!
In addition to fig duties, Colin and I built an awesome pair of hutches, one for rabbits and one for chickens (pictures soon, I hope). We woke up every morning by doing the bird feeding rounds and watering the garden (so lovely). And we did alot of harvesting work as it is the fall here, marked by Easter. As well as hand harvesting produce in the garden, we rode on a giant grape harvester at the vineyard. This thing is as tall as a house! They use to harvest the less select grape batches. It is driven along the rows. Tubes vibrate against the vines, which drops grapes, leaves, etc. onto a conveyor belt with enough space in between rollers to drop grapes through, but not stems or leaves. It is quite a new technology, and makes for a quick and relatively clean harvest. The vineyard was beautiful, especially from on top of the harvester! They've partnered up with a local sheep farm and run sheep through the rows in the off season to keep weeds down and fertilizer up. Most vineyards wouldn't do that, but Nick is interested in permaculture and grew up on a sheep and cattle farm and so the partnersheep (heh heh) just made sense. Their wine was also delicious, probably in no small part to the input of sheep.
Things were already frosting and there were a few mornings where we could see snow on the mountains in the distance. In the Amberley area there are Nor'westers and easters, which bring in a lot of wind and sometimes rain. These are often followed by Southwesterlies, which bring in cold and rain. Somehow all of these weather happenings regularly make rainbows and we saw three (four if you count the double rainbow) full arch rainbows in our two weeks there (again pictures ASAP).
We took one day off and exhausted ourselves by hiking up nearby Mt. Grey and then hiking nearly the entire 14 Km back to the house. I do recommend hiking beautiful mountains. I do not recommend continuing the hike for an extra 3 hours. We saw a lot of beautiful countryside and maybe a few too many sheep. But we now have a real sense of space in Amberley and know that is physically possible to spend 7 hours walking and live to tell the tale. Ironically, our day off was the most exhausting of any day so far.
All in all it was an incredible learning experience. I have a far greater appreciation for how hard it is to raise children and do anything else at the same time. And I will jump for joy every time I see a fresh fig.

What's next? As the plan stands now, Colin and I are about to head to Dunedin and stay at The Asylum, a hostel that was recommended to us outside of the city. We are both feeling a little wiped out by all of these wonderful people and places and are going to take a day to just chill out on our own schedule. Then we'll head towards the West Coast to do the Kepler Trek, a 4 day hike through beautiful mountains (typical NZed). We've been in touch with two farms near Queenstown and will probably stay with one of them after the trekscapade.

Whew, That's the news from here!