The Farm in Pictures

I recently promised pictures, and then never delivered. Here, then, is a pictoral exploration of what has been going on at the farm. Conveniently, it also saves me from sitting inside and typing, since the weather has just turned beautiful and summery - right before I leave for Wellington, of course. Anyway, enjoy!



Scarlet runner beans, more squash than we know what to do with, raspberries and a garden salad (broccoli, greens, peas, nasturtium blossoms, new carrots, and beet from a neighbor!)



Here we have sunflowers, cardoon blossoms, our first egg from the retrieved chooks, and rhubarb leaves; they are as big as my hat!

In Which We Encounter a Wandering Texan

Sometimes adventures fall right into your lap.

This Tuesday, we went over to Aamon and Wendy's for a barbeque (these are the people that had their 11th wedding anniversary party on 11/11/11 and roasted an entire sheep). Their three kids were keen for a swim when we arrived, so off we piled onto and into their truck, and went down to the river before dinner. On the way back, after a refreshing (a.k.a cold, a.k.a. freezing) dip in the recently rain-fed river, we encountered a backpacker crossing their drive. He had a huge pack, music blaring tinnily from headphones and was that a Texas A&M shirt?

It was. "Did you go to Texas A&M?" I called out. Looking a little taken aback, he applied in the affirmative. "I went to UT," I offered. His face expressed disapproval, and he made an upside down 'Hook-Em' sign. I replied with the correct 'Hook-Em' handsign as we pulled up the drive, leaving him on the road. Weird, I thought. Strangely enough, I managed to run into an Aggie in the middle of rural New Zealand. But it didn't end there. Just ten minutes and a lot of toweling later, Aamon looked out the window and remarked that a friend of mine seemed to be coming by. And indeed, I turned around to see the stranger hesitating by the front gate. Taking pity on him, I went out to make his acquaintance. His name, I now found out, was Trey, and he was wondering if he could pitch his tent on Aamon and Wendy's land. They did him one better and invited him over for tea, and so we found ourselves eating barbeque with a slightly shy but friendly and very grateful Texan. Oh, the coincidences.

Trey had some family in Hamilton, so he'd been mostly on the North Island, but had been hitchhiking around, eventually heading to Queenstown and sky-diving before heading back up. He was heading up to do some hiking on Mt. Arthur, but before we left I gave him our number in case he wanted to go to the pub after getting back. He lit out early the next morning from Aamon and Wendy's treehouse (where they had let him stay; they are very very nice people), and two days later I got a phonecall. So last night Mom and I hosted a fellow* Texan and fed him his first ever vegetarian meal. Well, the boy did grow up in Ft.Worth, and then move to College Station, and he did talk about how much he loves to barbeque. He is obviously a much better Texan than I am; he evens uses the greeting 'Howdy'! Anyway, despite slight cultural differences and despite the long-held animosity between our two alma maters, we managed to be very civil to one another. In fact, we got along splendidly. Honestly, it was nice seeing someone who was not only my age, but familiar with Texas. He understood my desire for warmer weather! He drank the same beer that I had! We talked about missing Mexican (well, Tex-Mexican) food! It was delightful.

So there you go. Two Texans met in the middle of New Zealand, drank a little beer, had some good talk, then went their separate ways. It can be refreshing talking to someone from your own area; you have to explain so much less, jokes are so much easier. When traveling, it can be exhausting to constantly feel like an outsider. It can be a little tiring in day to day life, too, I've found. Its the feeling of being instantly identified as 'not from here'. I think its stranger for my parents than for me, since they've lived here for so long but people instantly pidgeon hole them as tourists as soon as they speak.

Actually, for some weird reason we watched The Big Lebowski last week and it made me homesick. I think it was the little Americanisms in the film; they eat at In&Out, they use a Folgers tin. And its just so Californian. So it was good to see a Texan, and feel a little bit closer to that version of home.

*I hope I don't need to remind anyone that I am, in fact, a Texas resident. Making me a Texan. Okay? Okay.

My People are Back!

So, no longer am I alone on the homestead. My parents have returned, as has the cat (he kept leaving mysteriously and then re-appearing at 4am, once bringing a dead bird as a present). They had a fabulous time away, but are happy to be home, and I've been happy to have them. People to feed! And talk to! Its pretty amazing, let me tell you. Plus, they can admire all the hard work I've done in the garden. Well, the small changes, anyway. Actually, in terms of failed garden projects (oops!) I think I killed the water lily while trying to transplant it. Still, in the larger scheme of things I think I've nurtured more plants than I've killed, so that's something!

Unfortunately, while my parents brought the rain back with them. From an area that has a bit of drought no less; now that's impressive (or maybe my parents just attract rain... Can I blame them for the recent flooding in the Nelson area?). The past two days were full of constant intermittent rain; in other words, it would rain for a bit, then get sunny, then just when you thought it might clear up it would rain again. I decided to revolt against the changeable weather and spend most of my time inside, which I did. Of course, then I got a little stir crazy... it was a no-win situation, except that I have almost finished all my grad school applications, made a dress, read a bit and caught up with my parents. Rain is a good excuse to spend some time inside.

Today, luckily, the weather actually did clear up the way its been threatening to do, and some gardening actually got done. So did some listening to and dancing to ukulele music, since its that time of year when the Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra visit Nelson! More precisely, they come and play their annual gig at Neudorf vineyards, where everyone brings food, drinks wine and its all quite merry. I biked there and back from our place while the five other group members piled in the car; I think my elbows were more comfortable, but it took them less than 45 minutes to get home. It was a lovely time out; the strumming of ukuleles filled the air, charming small attention-loving children danced for the crowd, and we enjoyed wine and a range of picnic foods. Still, the event has gotten bigger, and this year they moved it to 6pm from around 3 (in an attempt to sell more wine, I'm guessing), and the crowd didn't seem quite so happy-go-lucky or interactive. When I saw the ukulele orchestra a few years ago, I ended up climbing a tree and remember a much more relaxed feel to the whole afternoon. Don't get me wrong, it was fun, I enjoyed it, I got to dance with some kids, but it wasn't as much something to write home about as in the past(and yet here I am...). Still, an enjoyable outing from the farm!

I was planning on putting some pictures up, mainly of the delightful garden produce coming in, but the camera's dead. I'll get around to it soon, though! And now that the rain's been and gone the garden's productivity will probably get even more crazy, so watch this space!

Lessons from Living Alone

There's a few things you realize about yourself (or maybe about humanity) when living alone. First, I'm not sure there's much point in growing and preparing gorgeous food when there's no-one to share it with. Who is going to admire the crispness of the sugar snap peas with me? Or the way that the beets and carrots are perfectly complemented by dill and walnuts? To whom can I modestly gloat about the New Mexican-style squash soup I semi-invented? Also, does anyone else want to do the dishes, because I'm sort of sick of having to do them all.

Its a little hard to get really into gardening when you're the only one eating from a garden for numerous reasons. There's too much food for one thing, at least in ours. I was struggling to keep the fridge under control, so eating everything ripe in the garden? Puh-lease. Also, sharing is a great way of both showing off (modestly) and showing that you care about other peoples' well-being. Living alone makes this hard, especially since most of my social life is, in fact, my parents' social life (yes, I am the saddest excuse for a 23 year old that I know, but I actually like it that way most of the time). There is the additional problem that not only can I not eat all of the food, but in fact when I cook I then have to eat the same things for multiple meals over the course of a day or two in order to eat it all. Food becomes less exciting when this is the case. Also, its boring.

Luckily, my parents come back tomorrow (mom) and thursday (dad) to save me from myself. Hurrah! Also, the cat came back, but has now disappeared again. He seems to leave every time that I don't pay attention to him for more than a few hours, or when I leave the property. Apparently my occasional pets and feedings aren't enough for him. Well, soon enough I won't be counting on him to be the nearest living creature, so ha!

Finally, adventures. Well, I've mostly been working on getting mom's road bike back in working order so that I can use it, and doing other gardening/chore type stuff around the farm. So my life isn't terribly exciting. It did finally get hot enough yesterday for me to go to the river - we've gotten so much rain and only occasional sunny days that it hardly feels like summer. So I biked the long way to the bridge and had a luxurious swim in water that, finally, both wasn't completely freezing and had dropped to its normal level so swimming was fun again. It was so clear that it was almost like swimming through crystal. Finally, some summer in New Zealand!

Speaking of places that are not New Zealand, I realized today that I missed corn tortillas. I don't often dwell on things that I miss about Texas (friends, warm weather, not having to worry about getting fried in the ozone hole-intense sun), but a good corn tortilla would have raised the squash soup I made to the level of sublime. Sigh. Well, guess I'll just have to go eat some of the raspberry ice cream I made from our own raspberries to console myself. Its a tough life.

Housesitting, Biking and All That Jazz

This week my parents have gone off to have adventures, so I'm all by myself on the homestead. I'm not sure it counts as housesitting if it happens to be at the place where you actually live, but its certainly interesting. It causes one to ask all sorts of questions, like 'how can the fridge still appear completely full when I've been eating from it for the past three days?' or 'how long before I go completely insane and start talking to myself out loud?' or 'if I rearrange all of the furniture, will my parents care?'. I thought that the cat and I were going to become best friends, but unfortunately he has disappeared - probably miffed that I went away for a good portion of the day yesterday. Hopefully he'll come back soon; I like it when he gardens with me.

As you might have inferred from my mentioning being away yesterday, I haven't entirely been sitting at home forlornly while my parents have been away. This week was the Nelson Jazz and Blues festival, and I do love me some jazz and blues. Plus, I have a mountain bike loaned to me from one of dad's mountain biking friends. The sum of these two facts meant that I biked to two of the festival events, and learned that biking places when you like the country takes ages. I have gained a certain understanding of the prevailing car culture, I think. On friday, biking to the Woollaston Vineyard took me an hour and a half (including one misdirection), and the bikeride I took to Richmond yesterday took over two hours. Two hours! Worse yet, much of those two hours were on a highway, which admittedly is only two lanes but people drive fast. I won't be going on that route again soon. In fact, I was quite fortunate that I could get a ride back from both events; its one thing spending two hours biking somewhere; its quite another having to turn around and bike back again, although it is lovely to be biking places again.
And the jazz! And the blues! By talented NZ artists! Live music is fabulous, and it doesn't hurt when you can bring a summer picnic and share with friends at the same time. Did I mention that two of these events was at a vineyard, and the third was in a park? Location, location, location. So even if the weather hasn't been completely summery, and my parents have abandoned me at home, I got to wear big hats and skirts and swan around listening to live music and eating finger food. Life is good.

Speaking of life being good, the garden is taking on a life of goodness all its own. Its really a shame that there is still so much food in the fridge, because we're just getting the first peas, beans, carrots, beets and escarole, and we're bursting at the seams with broccoli and zucchini, among other things. Why are there only so many meals in a day? How am I supposed to keep up? Good thing my parents are coming home in a just a few days. And now that the festivals over, I'm back in the garden doing useful things. Like building yet more trellises. And pulling still more weeds!

Flax!

In the big news of today, I have woven my first item from flax! Flax is native to New Zealand and its fibre has been used for centuries by the Maori for various things, from rope to baskets to everything in between. Its presence across New Zealand is fairly ubiquitous - we have some on the farm, even - making it a useful resource. I've been interested in weaving it for a while, but didn't exactly want to attempt it on my own. Luckily, a few of my parents' friends, knowing of my interest in weaving and having taken classes themselves, invited me to join them for a flax-weaving session. I accepted gladly. After biking over this morning, I found them preparing the flax (which, to be honest, I didn't even know you had to do). As it turns out, the preparation is the difficult part of flax weaving. Only a portion of the plant is usable, so that section needs to be selected for and cut into strips. Next, the flax needs to be softened, in our case by pulling a knife along its length, similar to how one would curl a ribbon. Finally, the beginning end is split to allow for weaving. Even after I got the hang of all the steps it was pretty slow going, and the preparation time went through a tea break and lunch to the early afternoon. Then we were finally ready to weave. Which, after a false start or two, turned out to be the easier part. I was planning on making a bag, but it turned into more of a baguette holder/quiver/ pencil holder for giants/...... its quite odd, really - it will probably end up full of flowers and hung up on the wall, declared 'interesting' by guests. Yet unpredictable outcome aside, it was marvelous to take a plant and turn it into something else entirely. At the moment the flax we used is a lovely motley of shades, including some almost rose hues and a number of greens. Unfortunately, as it dries all that will fade to unexciting beige. I'm keen to try again (maybe even to actually make a bag! Who knows!), but I am not so keen to spend a lot of time preparing the flax. Maybe on our next rainy day....

Speaking of rain, a few (more) days of rain right before New Years Eve troubled (even more) holidays makers and added to the sense of relaxation up here; mom and I even made it to Nelson to see some art since it was far too wet to be out in the garden. Of course, post-rain the weeds are racing ahead again, in the battle that never ends. The plants are loving it too, luckily, and its easy to see how soon we will be struggling to deal with all the produce from the garden.
In fact, now is the time of year when planting and maintenance happen simultaneous to harvesting and storage. Most of the radishes have been pulled out to make way for lettuce (tucked in behind the beans to avoid the hot summer sun), but have been turned into a variety of successful or not-so-successful preserved foods (kimchi delicious, radish 'chips' weird). So while we're reeling under the weight of our seeming acres of zucchini, I'm also cutting herbs and hanging them from the rafters to store for the winter, and watching seeds carefully for when they will be ready to save. It just reminds me how dynamic gardens are, making gardeners so aware of their antics. And forcing them to be creative with radishes and cardoons, among other things!