Sunday 10-3

Sunday began with Ashley and I writing in the Jury’s guestbook.  We happily reviewed all the awesome experiences we had at the farm, and reluctantly expressed our parting feelings.  We decided to leave my set of Buckyballs with the family.  While I was definitely attached to them, Ashley and I both felt that the little magnetic balls would be enjoyed significantly more by the Jury family (as we had seen the previous few weeks)

The family, and us, spent about 45 min hanging out with the farm animals: CJ, Milly, and the $15,000 pregnant Alpacas.  Lambchops (the smaller lamb) wasn’t as cool as CJ, so we didn’t really hang out with him.  Jesse rode on the goat, Milly, but not for very long because she was a speedy goat.

For brunch, Sharyn made pancakes (we would more accurately call them crepes), with whipped cream/jam/syrup/ and other very delicious and healthy materials J. They were supreme.

Ashley and I packed and cleaned, and then Sharyn Tony and I recorded 5 or 6 of their songs.  It was a pretty awesome run through, we only had to redo 3 or 4 songs, and they burnt the songs on a CD for Ashley and I to listen to on the car ride to Wellington. Sweet!

It was an emotional goodbye. We really didn’t want to go. The experience at the Jury farm was a great one and we will be hard-pressed to meet a more welcoming, fun, loving, and hospitable bunch of folks.  Thanks so much to Tony, Sharyn, Jesse, and Corban for everything! We love you guys J 

And thus our drive to Wellington began.  We hadn’t gone 10 miles before realizing we had left a pair of sunglasses in Tony’s ute :/ so we spun around and Sharyn graciously met us at the main road and handed them off.  The drive from the Jury’s house to our couch in Wellington took us about 5 hours, not bad for a bunch of tourists.

We were welcomed into Jon and Rebecca’s home by Eric, the other couch surfer, at about 8pm.  It just so happened that Eric was from Puyallup, WA and Jon was from Connecticut and had lived in Seattle and Alaska for 4 or 5 years…  Weird coincidence?  Since we got there pretty late, we just spent a few hours getting to know each other before we headed off to sleep.  Jon showed us some of his flying lessons that he had videotaped, and also a recording of him hang gliding (so cool!!!). 

We welcomed sleep gladly after a very draining day; unfortunately the hard floor only had a very thin layer carpet to cushion our bodies…

Saturday 10/2

Today JP got to herd cattle with Tony, separating one Tony’s cows from another man’s cows. Tony would allow the cows from one group to exit through a gate while JP tried to herd the wrong ones a way by scaring them with clicking sounds and swatting them on the behind with a stick. He had a blast doing it and said he felt like a real life farmer. J

Meanwhile I was washing dishes – feeling a little jealous. But that’s ok because JP had to go back out to the field with a hoe in the hot sunshine to wack away at thistles, while I got to learn how to transplant flowers with Sharyn from Grandma Celia’s garden.

That afternoon for lunch, we ate delicious corn fritters. I’m for sure gonna learn how to cook those! Corban and Jesse gobbled most of them down. J

After lunch we hopped in the truck, which they call a ute, and went to the walkway (or waterfront) in New Plymouth, where we met Shay, Nicki, and their 2 little girls, Summer and Keely. The boys got to bring their bicycles. It was kinda cold because of all the wind down there… but it was gorgeous and we loved it. We’d thought about going to a rugby game, the whole family that is, but we decided to stay in that night and enjoy our last night all together. After the boys went to bed, JP and I played a couple of games with Tony and Sharyn and had so much fun. We played Carcassonne again. And Tony won again. J lame.

Friday 10/1

Today we learned that alpacas are crazy expensive… like $15,000 each!

Because the sun came out early… whoo hoo! We got to go out and do yardwork – weeding the garden and hoeing thistles. We got to actually see Mt. Taranaki for the first time… and it is B-E-A-Utiful.

We also bought our car and drove it home, which was SOOO exciting.

The band came over that evening for practice – fun as usual J

And JP and I bought our ferry tickets (which amounted to about $300!). 

Thursday 9/30

As of tonight we've been here for a 2-week stretch. And we've had 2 weeks of downpour, with a couple of brief sun-breaks.

We leave for Wellington on Sunday morning. And according to the weather forecast, Sunday afternoon and thereafter is expected to be fine.

We're rather convinced we're cursed.  

While we've been here, the rain catcher broke and the house ran out of water, there have been a lot of internet problems, many sheep and lambs have died, as well as a few calves and cows, oh and it feels like there's been much much more, but I seem to be going blank.

No matter, they seem to like us anyway. :)

Today as the rain poured down, Sharyn and Tony decided to give us the day off – again – because they were out of indoor tasks to do. We felt pretty useless… but used the time to make preparations for our departure… such as a finding a bus ride to Wellington, finding a place to stay the night in Wellington, purchasing ferry tickets to the South Island, arranging a water taxi to take us to the lodge.

JP found a bus we could take and bought our tickets. We had been looking for a car for a while but hadn’t been able to find anything cheap enough.

That afternoon, Sharyn asked to play another round of Carcassonne! J and then Tony got in from town with awesome news.

He’d found a car, a navy blue Mitsubishi Galant being sold right in our price range from a mechanic friend of his. Tony took us out to the car lot so we could inspect the car and take it for a drive. And it was awesome. We made arrangements to purchase it the following day after the owner updated the car’s warrant, proving it to be in fit condition.

It turned out the bus tickets were non-refundable…. But whatever, we got an awesome deal on a car.

Thank you, Tony!

And thank you, Lord!!

Wednesday 9/29 –

Wednesday was my (Ashley’s) 23^rd birthday. And it was awesome. J Tony and Sharyn wouldn’t let us work that day but insisted it would be a day of fun. When JP and I came upstairs for breakfast, after we’d played a celebratory game of Carcassonne before even brushing our teeth, the Jury’s gave me a birthday present they’d prepared for me. J It was so cute. They’d caught on to my adoration of baby lambs and had made me a birthday card with two very cute little lambs on the front, gave me a very soft little lamb puppet (haha – puppet…. After the muppet party…. J), a lamb juice glass, and lots and lots of chocolates. J perfect.

That day we all (all except Tony) went to the Aquatic Center in New Plymouth where we went swimming, zoomed down waterslides, maneuvered through floaty obstacle courses, and relaxed in the hot tubs. J I hadn’t been to a place like that in years. It was awesome. The place was a lot more daring and less monitored than a typical American aquatic center, which had a lot more potential for danger, but definitely allowed the kids there to have more fun. J

After that we went to a roller-skating rink (another activity I hadn’t done in forever… and discovered that Sharyn was actually quite gifted at skating…. I think she should join a roller derby team. And after that, we went to a museum in New Plymouth. It was quite the busy day. :)

That night, after the boys went to bed, JP and I finally taught Tony and Sharyn Carcassonne – and they loved it! And Tony won. J Him and I battled over the fields THE entire game… and he managed to beat me.

As we went to bed…. our day of 9/29/10 ended, but on the other side of the world, the day of 9/29/10 began. J and I felt like I got 2 birthdays.

Tuesday 9/28

Tuesday the rain took a break and Tony had us out on the deck – water blasting (power-washing) the glass of the railings, and bleaching the actual deck and the sides of the house. JP completely destroyed his jeans, t-shirt, and zip-up hoodie with that crazy powerful bleach – but we had a blast.

That same day Tony moved the alpacas from one field (on top of the hill) to another (the one right by the house!). This was exciting news for me. JP and I had gone for a walk through the farm lands a couple days before and had encountered the alpacas who came racing up to inspect us, and we’d found ourselves positively enthralled with them. J

Now upon the arrival of 4pm, Ian Finer pulled into the driveway to steal us away once more. We’d made arrangements to spend time with the Finers one last time to see their dairy farm and eat dinner at their house.

So Ian took us straight out to one of the milking houses where the cows were all lined up from the fields to enter in on a bit of a merry-go-round upon which they’re mechanically milked on for a couple of minutes before being released once more onto their grazing fields.

And I got to milk cows. J It was awesome. Yes it was mechanical – but I still got poop on my arms, got peed on, and got kicked in the shoulder and swatted in the face with a tail – and it was all very invigorating. :) Now, sure it’s mechanical, but it still takes so skill to quickly apply the sucky-tubes to each nipple on the udders. At least, I felt like it took some skill….

Next we went in to the calf house – where the calves of all the local school children were being raised. Good lordy were they cute. The grandchildren of the two farm workers filled up the milk sacks for the calves, and we got to feed the calves muesli out of our hands and feel them suck on our fingers. J

Next we got to meet the big, old pigs ( who STUNK like none other!) and tried to the stop the little boy from throwing rocks at them… poor, stinky pigs. Ian Finer, who now has made quite a name for himself, told us about 30 years before when he’d first built the milking house with just about no money. :) Pretty incredible.

He took us back to his house where Janet was cooking away and refused any form of assistance. They encouraged us to enjoy the sunshine in their yard while waiting for dinner to start. So JP and I took some time examining their beautiful garden before planting ourselves on their porch swing.

Ian and Janet have 4 daughters and 1 son… so 5 kids, who have each married and bore 3 kids. That evening their daughter from Wellington, her police officer husband, and their 3 teenage daughters joined all of us for dinner. And we had the best time getting to know them. We all sat around the dinner table for hours, enjoying a wonderful meal of sheep, yams unlike we’ve ever seen, cooked pumpkin, and apple-blueberry crumble with hokey pokey ice cream for dessert (hokey pokey ice cream is vanilla with chunks of honeycomb mixed in). We enjoyed conversation about American stereotypes, political associations, media, the police force, alcohol, and yada-yada-yada. We thought they were delightful and that their daughters were charming.

We thanked them all profusely and then Ian brought us home. J We got back at 10pm.

Monday 9/27

We woke up Monday morning a bit earlier than usual because Sharyn had come downstairs and was calling our names. She wanted to know if one of us wanted to step in and help out at Tony’s sister’s café. One of Deb’s employees had called in sick that morning and she was already short. Tony ended up bringing both of us over. So we spent the day working at a café called BB’s in New Plymouth.

First thing we were given work shirts. JP had accidentally been given a woman’s shirt, which was too tight, too showed, his midriff, and made him look like he had breasts. After everyone had a good laugh over it, they found him a more appropriate BB’s shirt, and we got working. The two of us picked up pretty fast: preparing orders, serving tables, and cleaning tables. It was a lot of fun, but we were both reminded how exhausting food jobs are. When we took our lunch, Deb said we could eat anything we wanted. JP got a hot enchilada (and burned the skin in the top of his mouth off L) and I got a corn fritter topped off with a roasted tomato, bacon, brie, and hollandaise sauce. Yes we were tired. Yes we were extremely hungry. But still, I’m pretty sure those were the two best dishes of food we’ve ever had. BB’s rocks.

We also got to learn how to make milkshakes – and drink them. J

Around 3:30 or 4, Grandma Celia came to pick us up. And much to our surprise, Deb paid us $100. We had thought that we were working just as workaway people at the café instead of the farm, but apparently not. Deb also thanked us profusely for saving her butt (it had been a really busy day). And with our new $100, we went straight to the electronic store and bought ourselves a cell phone. It felt real good.

Celia drove us home and we sat in the car talking with her for a while (she’s fully of all kinds of crazy stories) then went inside. That night we stayed up late talking and laughing with Tony and Sharyn. We’re beginning to feel a lot closer to them and really like the relationship we’re developing. It’s an interesting combination between, employer’s, parents, and buddies. We’re really thankful that we ended up with a couple like them. They’re great parents, and are so good to each other and the people around them. They’re also very wise – yet very fun-loving. I think we’re learning a lot from them in regards to the kind of household we’d like to run and the kind of people we’d like to be.