On The Farm

We arrived on the farm for our second WWOOF experience, which is located 45 minutes outside of Nelson. This time on an organic sheep farm with an adventure business on the side (Wild Tracks - www.wildtracks.co.nz)

There were two other girls here helping out when we arrived, from Seattle believe it or not! The farm is located on a beautiful property with mountains/hills in the near distance. The weather has been hot and the sunsets have been beautiful. Our time on this farm has involved many different tasks; Kevin has been doing some computer tutoring with the older son, helped fix the irrigation system, sheep mustering, and many other odd jobs and I have been doing more domestic tasks such as washing (aka laundry), dishes, ironing, and also feeding the lambs and chickens and collecting the eggs. We can't forget about Arthur! Arthur is the littlest orphaned lamb (3 weeks) who stays in his own pen by the house. He gets fed a bottle 4 times a day and he is darling. He is about the size of a cat, but taller. The night before the other girls departed on their way we had a picnic dinner outside - I love summer! The family is a christian family and the parents are very warm, welcoming, and patient. They are very down-to-earth people and it has been great to how they interact with their 2 boys who are homeschooled and run the business. At times we feel busy here but at the same time we feel relaxed and are enjoying the rural lifestyle.

Ethan loves seeing the animals, especially Arthur, and playing on the grass. He continued to wake up mulitple times in the night because of his sore gums. His tooth cut through though and last night we were only up once - praise the Lord!!! I feel so much better to have had a long stretch of sleep :)

Nelson - Part 1

Well we got a little behind with the blog updates. We have been doing a variety of things since Milford Sound and the next few posts will fill in those gaps.

After our time in Milford Sound we spent the entire day driving to get to the town of Nelson (12 hours north with only a handful of stops-Ethan did amazing!). One of our stops was to see the Foxx Glacier which was very interesting (http://www.foxguides.co.nz/facts.asp). We stood in the valley where the glacier had been in the 1700's and we were able to walk almost right up to where it has since retreated.

We also drove through the small town of Greymouth where a mining accident occurred just a few days before where all 29 men died. It has been a major news story and tragedy accross New Zealand and we saw camaras and reporters set up covering the story.

We finally arrived in Nelson at the hostel (Almond House) where we stayed for 5 consecutive nights. It was SO nice to just be in one place for a bit. I don't think we realized quite how tired we were of staying one night, packing up in the morning, and heading on to another place, like we had for a week. The hostel was small and spacious, located on a residential street, only a short walk to the downtown. We relaxed in the backyard, took turns going for a morning jog along the river, went to the beach (beautiful!!!), and to the small zoo. Poor Ethan's gums were sore and he was waking several times a night. The walls are thin and with other people trying to sleep, I was mortified to see them in the morning. I thought we were going to get out. One night when it seemed to take forever to get Ethan to settle, Kevin took him to the car and they slept out there. As it turns out, I really don't think many people noticed. What seemed like a lot of crying to me, was likly only a few minutes. The lady who managed the hostel with her husband (also mother of small children) kept commenting on how great Ethan was doing. We finally started to relax a bit more and we really enjoyed not doing a whole lot.