Day 4 on the farm

Today we weeded the corn patch and planted a second crop of corn. We paddled around the swimming pond and fished scummy plants out with a net! It’s a good activity in the heat. It’s really hot here, but the breeze keeps it tolerable. On our morning walk I climbed a tree with Alec. He always points out the good climbing trees on the property, so I decided to give this one a try.

Oldest bridge in NZ. 

Weaving flax. 

An old cream shack. 

The art gallery building. 

Then Laura and I walked to Kohukohu, the nearest village, which is about a half hour walk away. It has a handful of cute little shops and cafes. We went back to the art gallery and I bought a really awesome art piece that I have to send home in the mail. It’s stitched muka (flax fibre), plain and dyed with a local tree bark, on a blank canvas. It’s my first piece of art ever bought in a gallery! I can’t wait to hang it when I get home. Everyone in the art gallery is so lovely! There is a little artist collective that we made friends with, and I got to meet an talk to the artist that made the piece I bought!

We also went to an adorable café and had coffee and carrot cake. Everything is on island time here… so you can’t be in a rush!

We walked along the main drag and stood on New Zealand’s oldest bridge. It was a lovely day. The walk back was fun, we met a local who walked with us for a ways and told us about some Maori culture. We came home and made some soup for dinner with a lot of garden veggies (veges as they call them in Kiwiland). 

We went up to the highest point on the property and looked at the stars with giant binoculars and a tripod. We saw Jupiter's moons!!!! It was soooooooo amazing. I nearly had a panic attack when I saw them. And we looked at Sirius and the Seven Sisters and galaxies and nebulaas and dust clouds. And we saw the Southern Cross, which is a new constellation for us.