Day 3 on the farm

Jan 4 Blog version

Alec makes a lovely muesli mix that we have for breakfast. It’s what gets me out of bed in the morning. Although the blue skies and birds singing helps too (sorry Canadians). On our morning walk with Dog we went up to Wally’s house. Alec sold some property to Wally a few years ago, and Wally has built a house completely off the grid with 2 solar panels and a wind turbine. Wally makes model airplanes, and has some art in the local gallery too. We found some jasmine flowers on the walk and put them in our caravan. They made the place smell really good and flowery.

We weeded the strawberry patch, and were allowed to eat all the strawberries we found! They were delicious. And the highlight of my day was….. I FOUND A PRAYING MANTIS!!! Best day ever! It was a little green one. I want to keep it as a pet in our caravan but Laura won’t let me. We ate some grapefruits (New Zealand gold and Wheeney varieties that are so sweet! The Wheeney tastes like lemonade!) , and a fruit salad fruit (which is the fruit from a house plant we have in Canada). The fruit salad fruit’s Latin name translates to  delicious monster or something like that. Turns out the fruit is really delicious, but it contains oxalic acid that feels like slivers in your mouth when you eat them (surprise!). Alec didn’t tell us until after we ate them…. (We ate more anyway, even though we were terrified of it. It was such a rush.)

Then we too the ferry to Rawene (a 10 min drive plus a 10 min ferry ride) to get a car part fixed. There were rogue chickens on the loose at the ferry terminal! They were beautiful. We got some groceries and picked some prickly pairs to eat from the parking lot, but we ended up with little slivers all over our hands (we are so smart). We stopped in the Kohukohu village on the way back and went to a little op-shop (thrift store) in a tiny little box building that I looooove. We went to two art galleries: one had both traditional and contemporary Maori art. The owner’s sister worked down the road and was doing a flax fibre workshop, so of course we went to see her and had an impromptu flax workshop! Everyone was ridiculously nice and friendly. Laura was really good at separating the fibres from the long leaves. We used the sharp edge of a big mussel shell to scrape off the green and waxy part of the leaf. The white fibre can then be twisted to make twine.

2 types of grapefruit and fruit salad fruit for a snack

Picking graprefruit

Wally's garden. Banana trees in the background, nasturtiums in the foreground, which are basically invasive here. They're everywhere! 

My new best friend. 

Chickens at the ferry terminal. They actually crossed the road at one point. 

Prickly pears in Rawene. 

Giant fiddlehead. 

Going on a walk with Dog. 

Black tree fern. HUGE! 

The view from the top of the property. 

Stick bug. 

Dog being majestic. 

We picked some sweet corn for dinner and cherimoyas from a tree. It’s my new favourite fruit! Its dark green on the outside, apple sized, but it’s squishier. Inside it has white flesh with giant apple-like seeds and tastes like bananas mixed with pear and vanilla pudding and mango and pineapple! Laura and I are addicted. Fortunately there are trillions around here! We eat them fiendishly at almost every meal. 

In the evening we went up to the top of the property with giant binoculars and a tripod. It was so beautiful! We saw 4 or 5 of Jupiter's moons!! I really freaked out when I saw them. We looked at different constellations and gas clouds and dust clouds. And we saw a few shooting stars! A great way to end the day.