What I discovered only after their arrival was that only Thomas spoke English, Prune was extremely ill with flu and she also has a fatal allergy to shellfish. The language barrier I could cope with but I completely freaked out (mentally) about the other two. I was assured Prune didn’t have swine flu but that wasn’t my concern. Any flu can be transmitted to the pigs, not to mention us. Then when I asked if Prune was carrying medication for possible anaphylactic shock Thomas said no but it would be fine if I made sure there was no seafood in any meal.
“But Tom, the hospital is 45 minutes drive away”
“Oh” he seemed surprised “Oh well, just don’t use any seafood”
I suddenly felt quite stressed at the thought that I would have to ingredient check every label.
It’s fair to say I did not cope well that first night. While I am doing my best to be a more tolerant and patient person, I still get upset when guests don’t forewarn us of issues that will have a direct impact on us as hosts.
Saturday was still a little strained as Prune clearly needed to be tucked up in bed for several days, not out in the cold, wet weather. However, we had to show them around the farm and explain the various jobs. Prune was clearly miserable, both with illness and inability to communicate and unfortunately all I felt at that stage was annoyance.
And so they helped with our Saturday tasks and then in the afternoon I drove into Kaiwaka to pick up Vicky from Hong Kong. The dogs had insisted on coming with me and she was greeted by an eager tongue licking from an excited, very wet and dirty Coppa. Welcome to the family!
Saturday evening we all struggled to make conversation and I started to think I’d made a terrible mistake inviting these HelpXers into our home. And then Aaron told me he would be going to Jeff’s Sunday morning and would be back Monday night. I was furious, but there was nothing I could do. He was going, and that was that.
Sunday morning, as Aaron collected his stuff ready to leave, I raced up and down the drive trying to organize the HelpXers. Because of the lack of English comprehension it’s not a small task to explain where to find this and how to do that. Everything has to be shown as well as explained and it’s easier for me to run around collecting tools, gloves, etc rather than try to explain. Within an hour I felt exhausted and profoundly irritated.
However, eventually I got everyone sorted and the day passed rather quickly. In the evening I made dinner and as we sat around after dinner the conversation, though somewhat caught up in the language barrier, started to flow. We ended up having a good laugh about several things, including Prune’s ability to quickly learn mine and Aaron’s oft used swear words.
Monday morning, as I was getting ready to rise, Aaron arrived home. The flu had hit him and he spent the next 3 days in bed. We were both rather annoyed by this turn of events. Aaron’s job is far too busy at the moment for him to be having sick time off and he could now not go near the pigs.
With so many helpers this in theory shouldn’t be a problem, unfortunately all of them had decided, once they’d met our many piggies that, they were in fact way too scary to be in the same paddock with.
Suddenly the number of jobs we could get our guests to do became quite limited. In fact it was even more limited for Prune, who upon finding out what jobs there were to do, had decided on Monday that she only wanted to do painting. Fortunately we had plenty of painting to do but this wasn’t quite the attitude I was expecting of someone who had decided to come stay on a farm.
In fact, while Thomas was open to doing different jobs he wasn’t particularly motivated. Unlike Vicky, who is incredibly self-motivated and just gets stuck in.
Tuesday night I arrived home to find dinner waiting for me. Tom and Prune had made pasta for dinner and crepes for dessert. Now that was more like it!
After good food and a very relaxed evening Tom and Prune suggested Vicky make dinner the following evening.
Wednesday evening I arrived home to the most divine smell of sweet and sour pork. Vicky had everything under control so I sat on the sofa with a glass of cider and put my feet up. And all was well for about 10 minutes and then I had this nagging thought creep into my mind. I went into the kitchen.
“Vicky, did Tom tell you Prune is allergic to seafood?”
“No” Vicky expressed surprise
“Is there are any seafood in the dinner?”
“No”
“Did you use oyster sauce?”
“Yes, in the sauce”
“Did you know oyster sauce is seafood?”
“No?” Vicky was very confused. I had to explain that oyster sauce was from shellfish and therefore seafood.
Vicky was horrified.
“Tom.” I said “There’s oyster sauce in the sweet and sour sauce”
“Oh. Oh okay, well Prune can’t have any sauce then” He was so incredibly blasé about it that I seriously wondered just how bad her allergy was.
I double checked with Vicky that there was no oyster sauce in anything else. She was acutely embarrassed by the whole situation and I hoped that when she said no, she was saying it because of Prune’s allergy and not because she didn’t want to upset me.
I sat down again but it’s fair to say my nerves were slightly frayed.
Then Tom asked me to confirm there was no seafood in the rest of the meal I told him to check. There was no way I was accepting the responsibility for Prune’s health. And so he asked, Vicky said no and then they sat down again.
Dinner was served and Prune was pouting, clearly upset that she had no sauce for her meal. Then as we started to eat Prune suddenly stopped and said something to Tom.
“Vicky, did you use different spoons for each pan?”
Oh my God! Was he kidding??? How is it Prune’s allergy is so extreme that it never even occurred to them to tell Vicky not to use seafood? And then unbelievably they start asking about the serving spoons only after dinner’s been served.
I was absolutely fuming. They’d embarrassed Vicky terribly and Prune spent the rest of the evening pouting.
I wanted them to leave. My stress levels shot through the roof that evening. They are not inherently bad or horrible people but I can only describe it as like being in a house with a couple of 18 year olds. While they see themselves as very mature and worldly-wise they are in fact the complete opposite. In fact Aaron and I have ended up feeling more like they see us as a bed & breakfast than as HelpXchange hosts.
Thursday while at work, I talked it over with Aaron. They had given us the impression they weren’t intending to leave and it worried us both. We agreed they could only stay the agreed week. Unfortunately neither of us knew how to raise the subject with them.
Thursday night I got home from work and Vicky was busy making dinner again. It was an unexpected treat. I was all ready to relax but then Aaron said we had to go meet the new butcher and pick up some more pork.
We went and met Bruce and what a lovely guy he is. I feel incredibly happy that our piglets are ending up at his place.
After an hour we were back home to the delights of a very spicy spaghetti dish. Vicky had decided since it was such a cold night she would slosh in a large amount of chilli sauce. It tasted great but both Prune and I were left gasping for breath.
Vicky had also made some fresh bread in the breadmaker. In fact, after showing her how to use it on Monday she had been making fresh bread every day. I was delighted. Not only did we get to try different breads but she was also providing cheap food for her and the Frenchies.
By Thursday evening it was clear Vicky’s work ethic was a stark contrast to Tom and Prune’s. I was starting to feel resentful and the odd comment from Prune, while said in jest seemed to have some insult behind it. She took great delight in mimicking us and making jokes about our age, which while amusing to start with, started to seem quite disrespectful as the week progressed.
And so as we sat and talked after dinner, Vicky very helpfully brought up the subject of her travels and that started the ball rolling. As we discussed her plans I asked Tom where they were headed next.
“I don’t know. We haven’t actually thought about it” That was not what I had expected to hear.
And then we heard footsteps outside and Carl suddenly appeared on the verandah. The opportunity was lost. I was gutted.
Friday I stewed about it all day, and then when I talked it over with one of my colleagues she mentioned that some red wine has fish products in it. I was appalled. How often do I put a splash of red wine in something?!
Aaron contacted me at work to tell me a huge storm was due to hit Northland Saturday. I swore. There was no way we could ask our guests to leave on Saturday. I ended up stewing about it some more until I came up with an idea which Aaron thought was as subtle as a lead balloon.
I text Tom from work, along the lines of “Not sure what day you were planning on leaving this weekend but I wouldn’t suggest Saturday as there’s a big storm due to arrive.”
I didn’t get a reply so Aaron was left to deal with it when he got home. They had clearly been shocked to receive the text. Were they really being asked to leave?
Aaron explained that we only ever offer an initial week to guests and then we take it from there. He reiterated that they could stay Saturday and leave Sunday or Monday at the very latest.
Saturday we waited for the big storm. It was wet and windy and we told our guests we didn’t expect them to do too much outdoor stuff. Fortunately the storm didn’t come as far south as Kaiwaka.
Lyn and Pete turned up for a morning visit and Aaron skillfully managed to herd the Helpxers down to work in the shed so we could have a relaxing catch up.
Sunday arrived and despite feeling mean, I hoped that Tom and Prune would pack up and leave. They didn’t of course.
Sunday both Aaron and I were shattered. As we sat eating breakfast I said to Aaron I just couldn’t face doing any work. I just needed time to recharge my batteries. He felt much the same.
Vicky got up early and after a leisurely breakfast with us started looking around for work to do. Tom and Prune had a long sleep in, rolling out of bed after 10. They also had a relaxed breakfast. I mentioned what types of jobs could be done for the day and as I read a book they fell asleep on the sofa. They seemed to have no intention of working while we sat relaxing.
Neither Aaron or I want to be the type of hosts that order guests around, so at that point I felt my only option was to lead by example. Reluctantly I got up, got changed and went outside and cleaned the troughs. Tom and Prune started work about midday.
After an hour they decided to stop for a 2 hour lunch break and then they went back out for a couple of hours. By that time I’d called it quits for the day and they did too.
Come Monday morning Aaron left for work, and as the morning progressed I was feeling quite agitated. I got the distinct impression Tom and Prune were hoping I’d extend their stay.
We moved the cows, caught up on 3 weeks compost, washed clothes, made up pig food and pottered around tidying up by the shed.
Mabel and her piglets spent much of the day in the close vicinity. The piglets do all the time of course but Mabel decided early in the week that she should also be allowed to join in their adventures.
Mabel Gets Her Own Way
Part way through the week I arrived home from work to find Mabel wandering down the drive. She’d forced one section of her fence until it broke and walked straight on out. We hastily repaired it as the dark closed in and told Mabel to behave herself. She gave us one of those looks though. I know that pig expression well. It was the famous “You think that’s going to stop me??” look. As soon as I see that look I know we have trouble. And I was right. The next day she lifted the gate off its gudgeons and walked out again. Aaron came home to find her saying hello to Joy.
Aaron hammered a piece of wood above the top gate gudgeon but Saturday morning she worked out quickly that if she applied a bit of force to the bottom hinge she could rip the gudgeon straight out of the wood and push the gate upwards like a cat flap.
“Mabel!” I said in exasperation. She looked at me with her “What??” expression. Adult pigs are sooo like teenagers, they know what they want and they just can’t see what your problem is when you tell them not do something.
“What the hell are we going to do?” I asked Aaron
“Not much we can do. We might as well let her have what she wants”
And that’s how the electric wire ended up running either side of the drive from house to shed. Mabel and piglets now have that entire section of driveway, plus the area in front of the shed all to themselves. Our cars now have to be parked down by the shed and we have to walk up to the house from there. But Mabel and piglets are very happy and that’s what counts.
Of course it wasn’t smooth sailing from there. We have four 3-year old trees planted down by the shed. They’re all incredibly healthy and lush, or at least they were. We wandered down to the shed Saturday evening only to discover that Mabel had decided to test out her pruning technique.
“Oh shit!” we stared in horror at the mass of pohutukawa, puriri and kauri prunings littering the driveway.
“That’s at least a year’s growth gone” I was gutted
“A year?! More like 2!” Aaron was just a little pissed off.
We shut the gate to the shed area so Mabel only had the drive. We needed to figure out how to protect the remains of the trees until we let her back in.
Burn Baby Burn
Sunday morning was another cold one and we decided to have a burn off down by the shed. Aaron has set up an incinerator and we set about burning all our boxes of junk mail, old telephone books and a large pile of old timber.
We kept the gate closed so the pigs couldn’t get near but the dogs hung around by the shed with us.
We stood close by in our swanndris, absorbing what heat we could until eventually the fire really got cranking and the drum started to radiate with heat. I grabbed an old chair from the shed and sat down while Aaron stoked the fire. And for the rest of the day we took turns sitting in the chair reading and occasionally stoking the fire while one of us went off and did some work. Aaron took his chainsaw to the other side of the stream and started chopping up next year’s firewood and I dug up and replanted an area by the front gate.
One of our HelpXers had very kindly planted a large number of native trees for us, which was fine except it never occurred to us she didn’t know anything about planting trees. What we ended up with was three very neat rows of trees. That in itself is not so bad, except, although I had showed our HelpXer what the trees looked like after only 5 years growth the gaps she’d left between each tree was roughly 30cm. All in all it was all very uniform and had we left them we would have ended up with a very strange looking hedge. I dug at least half of them up and spread them around a lot more. There was plenty of space for them to be planted but my instructions had clearly not been specific enough. I also discovered that our HelpXer had planted our seedlings very deep, burying not only the roots but a good 10cm of trunk as well.
It’s hard to remember that what’s obvious to me can be a completely foreign concept to someone who has no experience of gardening or farming.
