April 7th: We drove from Akaroa back to Christchurch and headed straight to the Orana Wildlife Park. This small wildlife park has animal feedings throughout the day all scheduled so you can make it to all of them. We started with the farm animals, and then we got to see our first Kiwi bird as they fed it in the nocturnal kiwi house. We paid extra and got to ride in a cage on the back of a truck that went into the lion enclosure and stood about 2 feet as the keeper fed the lion horse meat. It was AWSEOME being that close to a lion. Then we fed giraffes, saw how fast Cheetahs can run (and how wimpy their meow is – it sounds like a house cat’s meow!), saw the rhinos, meerkats, otters, all your favorite zoo animals. Then we headed back to our campground and settled in for our last night in our van. :(
Cute harbor town of Akaroa
We decided not to spend $ to swim with the dolphins, so this is as close as we got
REALLY close to the lion....
Christchurch, Cathedral SquareApril 8th: Last day with the van. We started cleaning it in the morning and repacking all our bags. Then we took it to the self service car wash and turned it in, and boarded a bus for Amberley to start our week on the farm. Debra our host picked us up in her cool old Land Cruiser SUV aka the farm truck. They had a farmstay girl from Japan in the house for the first night we slept in their cabins. Farmstay is different than farm help – that girl pays to stay here and only do the fun farm things while we work and do some non-fun farm things in exchange for room and board. We set up our beds and came inside for dinner. We had corned beef from a cow they had butchered, salad with tomatoes from their garden and potatoes that were hand dug that morning. Talk about a home-grown meal.
April 9th: We were ready for work at 9:30am. Frankly I thought we’d be getting up at the crack of dawn so 9:30am was alright for me. Our first farm job was to make blueberry muffins, since the Japanese girl and a German farm helper they had made awful apple muffins the previous day. Easy enough. While Sarah did that I ran a dozen free range eggs from the farm’s chickens over to a neighbor. Next we fed the horses, one of which kicked Sarah when she tried to shoo it away from the hay that was for another set of horses, and then came in for lunch. After lunch (and tea, of course) we spent 2 hours pulling pinecones off cut tree limbs and sorting the pinecones from the branches and the stumps. It was pretty hard work and I was definitely sore the next day (oh wait, I still am!). Mike and Debra’s daughter, her husband and their 2 kids joined us for dinner – lamb chops (from one of their lambs), salad and more fresh potatoes. (If I blog about the food a lot thats because its awesome and I cant get over the fact that its all home grown and organic…so fresh!)
April 10th: We rode with Debra to a town on the other side of Christchurch to pick up 5 sheep she bought. It had snowed in the mountains the night before so during the drive I just stared at the snowcapped mountains next to the lush green fields. This whole country looks like one perfect painting. It’s seriously unreal how pretty it is. Hopefully the sheep are pregnant as they have been “running” with a male and they will have lambs at the end of this year. I asked a million questions about sheep and learned pretty much all Ill ever need to know, and more. We got the sheep settled in their new pasture, fed the horses, ate lunch and spent the afternoon filling potholes in their ½ mile long driveway. We also fed the chickens and collected eggs. It was a real Easter egg hunt, the eggs come from different breeds of chickens so they are different colors and you really have to look for them to find them! We had schnitzel for dinner and watched American Idol.
Aril 11th: I cooked some of the eggs I collected for breakfast and we set out to finish the potholes. We fed the horses and when we came back for lunch Mike and Debra’s daughter was at the house again with kids, and 3 hitchhikers she picked up. They were 2 Americans and a Canadian that are out doing a faith week which means they have $20, no food, and no tent and rely on their faith and God to bless them with what they need. It’s working so far since they were picked up by Carla who brought them to the farm to stay the night and eat some good food. They are doing to Discipleship Training School in a town in NZ with 43 other students and after their classes are over they will disperse over the world (2 of them are going to Africa, one to Asia) and do missions for a few months, then meet up in Jerusalem for graduation. It’s called YWAM – Youth with a Mission- and apparently it’s a really big organization, even in the States, but I hadn’t heard of it. It was so cool to meet them and listen to their adventure and what’s yet to come.
After Sarah and I took the kids to collect eggs, feed chickens and feed the horses apples from the apple trees (I had one myself, so good!!) we joined the other 3 at the top lot and cleared branches for about 3 hours. It was boring, monotonous and hard but it had to get done! We had lamb sausages for dinner and there were 10 people at the table! I got to talk to Allie today as it was her birthday back in the States so that was super nice. It was a great day!
April 11th, Easter: We went to church in a town nearby which was quite interesting. It was a tiny Pentecostal church that hardly even spoke of Easter, much different than the Easter Sunday service I'm used to. But it was still nice. Debra took the other 3 and dropped them off on the highway and pointed them in the right direction. They will try to hitch to the north part of the South Island. We told them the good places to go but they will just have to see where hitching gets them. I got their emails and can’t wait to hear how their week ends up going. After church we had lunch, changed into work clothes, fed the horses and spend the rest of the afternoon helping Mike and Debra build a horse jump for the cross country course they are putting in. More fun but exhausting work. We had yummy, home grown, organic soup for dinner. I think for dessert we’ll have leftover fruit pudding or hot cross buns (yes, they are a real thing!).
Tuesday they are going to drive us back into Christchurch and we’ll stay the night in a hostel before catching our early flight to Auckland then Sydney Wednesday.
The farmstay has been really cool. There is so much more to farming than I ever thought! Mike and Debra are super nice and so funny, they have a great marriage and you can see that just by the way they play off each other. Debra says she is working on being a Proverbs 31 woman but I think she’s more than halfway there (read it to see what I mean). They are both very hardworking farmers and they each have other jobs too! She’s an accountant and he’s a programmer! It’s been really great and I really feel at home here. They have been hosting strangers in their home since the 70s and they truly enjoy it.
The horse jump we made today
Sarah helped build this fence
Feeding the horses!
Pretty free range eggs!
April 9th: We were ready for work at 9:30am. Frankly I thought we’d be getting up at the crack of dawn so 9:30am was alright for me. Our first farm job was to make blueberry muffins, since the Japanese girl and a German farm helper they had made awful apple muffins the previous day. Easy enough. While Sarah did that I ran a dozen free range eggs from the farm’s chickens over to a neighbor. Next we fed the horses, one of which kicked Sarah when she tried to shoo it away from the hay that was for another set of horses, and then came in for lunch. After lunch (and tea, of course) we spent 2 hours pulling pinecones off cut tree limbs and sorting the pinecones from the branches and the stumps. It was pretty hard work and I was definitely sore the next day (oh wait, I still am!). Mike and Debra’s daughter, her husband and their 2 kids joined us for dinner – lamb chops (from one of their lambs), salad and more fresh potatoes. (If I blog about the food a lot thats because its awesome and I cant get over the fact that its all home grown and organic…so fresh!)
April 10th: We rode with Debra to a town on the other side of Christchurch to pick up 5 sheep she bought. It had snowed in the mountains the night before so during the drive I just stared at the snowcapped mountains next to the lush green fields. This whole country looks like one perfect painting. It’s seriously unreal how pretty it is. Hopefully the sheep are pregnant as they have been “running” with a male and they will have lambs at the end of this year. I asked a million questions about sheep and learned pretty much all Ill ever need to know, and more. We got the sheep settled in their new pasture, fed the horses, ate lunch and spent the afternoon filling potholes in their ½ mile long driveway. We also fed the chickens and collected eggs. It was a real Easter egg hunt, the eggs come from different breeds of chickens so they are different colors and you really have to look for them to find them! We had schnitzel for dinner and watched American Idol.
Aril 11th: I cooked some of the eggs I collected for breakfast and we set out to finish the potholes. We fed the horses and when we came back for lunch Mike and Debra’s daughter was at the house again with kids, and 3 hitchhikers she picked up. They were 2 Americans and a Canadian that are out doing a faith week which means they have $20, no food, and no tent and rely on their faith and God to bless them with what they need. It’s working so far since they were picked up by Carla who brought them to the farm to stay the night and eat some good food. They are doing to Discipleship Training School in a town in NZ with 43 other students and after their classes are over they will disperse over the world (2 of them are going to Africa, one to Asia) and do missions for a few months, then meet up in Jerusalem for graduation. It’s called YWAM – Youth with a Mission- and apparently it’s a really big organization, even in the States, but I hadn’t heard of it. It was so cool to meet them and listen to their adventure and what’s yet to come.
After Sarah and I took the kids to collect eggs, feed chickens and feed the horses apples from the apple trees (I had one myself, so good!!) we joined the other 3 at the top lot and cleared branches for about 3 hours. It was boring, monotonous and hard but it had to get done! We had lamb sausages for dinner and there were 10 people at the table! I got to talk to Allie today as it was her birthday back in the States so that was super nice. It was a great day!
April 11th, Easter: We went to church in a town nearby which was quite interesting. It was a tiny Pentecostal church that hardly even spoke of Easter, much different than the Easter Sunday service I'm used to. But it was still nice. Debra took the other 3 and dropped them off on the highway and pointed them in the right direction. They will try to hitch to the north part of the South Island. We told them the good places to go but they will just have to see where hitching gets them. I got their emails and can’t wait to hear how their week ends up going. After church we had lunch, changed into work clothes, fed the horses and spend the rest of the afternoon helping Mike and Debra build a horse jump for the cross country course they are putting in. More fun but exhausting work. We had yummy, home grown, organic soup for dinner. I think for dessert we’ll have leftover fruit pudding or hot cross buns (yes, they are a real thing!).
Tuesday they are going to drive us back into Christchurch and we’ll stay the night in a hostel before catching our early flight to Auckland then Sydney Wednesday.
The farmstay has been really cool. There is so much more to farming than I ever thought! Mike and Debra are super nice and so funny, they have a great marriage and you can see that just by the way they play off each other. Debra says she is working on being a Proverbs 31 woman but I think she’s more than halfway there (read it to see what I mean). They are both very hardworking farmers and they each have other jobs too! She’s an accountant and he’s a programmer! It’s been really great and I really feel at home here. They have been hosting strangers in their home since the 70s and they truly enjoy it.
The horse jump we made today
Sarah helped build this fence
Feeding the horses!
Pretty free range eggs! 
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