British HelpXer Clare arrived for 4 days. She left and I suggested she come back. Within 2 days she returned and stayed for another 3 weeks. We were so impressed by her work ethic and lovely, slightly eccentric personality that we convinced her to help Bev and Dave at Muriwai Valley Farms once she left our place.
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| Clare & Sick Chick |
The poor girl put up with numerous animal escapes while we were at work. There was at least one escape per day for 2 weeks solid; mostly the half wild piglets!
Oh my god what a nightmare they’re turning out to be. They’re sweet but cunning and the dark red one is a determined ankle biter. I try to spend time with them but continually fending off the biting is tiring.
They spend all day looking for escape routes and figuring out how to pull the corrugated iron walls off the bent nails. We had wanted to integrate them with Olive and Emily but these 2 half wilds are just so hyper we realise they’re not going to fit in with any of our other pigs. They have become a lot more hassle than we anticipated. We know they’re bored and so we keep extending their run. We started with corrugated iron walls but I felt the lack of outlook was cruel and so I made Aaron knock in some more waratahs and extend the run with chainlink fencing. Slowly their run extends further and further down the old limestone driveway and they’re doing a great job removing 2 years worth of kikuyu roots. We’re finally getting our driveway back and I have no complaints.
I want to keep extending the run so that we can put a couple of piglets in there maybe once a year to keep the driveway in good condition. Aaron’s not so keen. More fencing equals more money and he wants to spend money on more infrastructure.
When Clare returned the 2nd time I picked up Israeli HelpXer Yogev at the same time. Raised on a kibbutz we were intrigued, and after a keen sounding email request to us we were keen to have him stay.
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| Yogev and Aaron at Farmageddon |
He appeared young, fit and keen but all was not as it seemed. In hindsight I think he was keen to learn and experience but through observation, not participation. After several days he was disarmingly honest and told us he lacked self-motivation and didn’t use his initiative either. It was a very smart move on his part as it is hard to argue with someone who tells you such a thing.
Being at work most of the time meant we could not supervise and so essentially he had told us not to expect much of him. And so it quickly became obvious that Clare was doing more than her fair share to make up for Yogev’s shortfall.
Clare was up at 8 but Yogev preferred to sleep until lunchtime. By that time Clare was ready to come in and relax but Yogev didn’t wan’t to work if Clare wasn’t. It was a difficult situation. Clare didn’t want to complain and I had a hard time trying to convince her to just do her 4 hours and relax.
We could have told Yogev to get up at 8 but we are not employers. We don’t believe we should make our HelpXers do anything. The whole concept behind this programme is to have a fair exchange. We are all adults and should take full responsibility for our actions. It’s unfortunate that some HelpXers see this exchange more as a cheap holiday.
After 2 weeks we told him and Clare they would have to leave to make room for other guests. Yogev left, our expected guests didn’t arrive and we asked Clare if she wanted to stay until the end of the week. Amazingly she seemed keen and we were stoked.
Don’t get me wrong, Yogev is a nice enough guy but HelpX is not for him. We were his first hosts and quite possibly his last. He’s intelligent so I suspect he’s figured out this scheme isn’t for him.
Inner Tube Races Here We Come
Goodness knows how he did it but Aaron managed to convince Marty to dedicate several days to using his 20-tonne digger to clear our stream.
They started last Wednesday. Aaron chainsawing willow tree after willow tree and Marty hauling them and all the crap out of the stream.
They started at the bridge and worked their way back. After a couple of hours on the corner, hauling out the crap and dumping it on the land behind him Marty discovered to his horror that the digger was stuck. Our drought had made the land rock hard but as the watery mud was dumped on the land it soaked the ground around the digger and slowly, very slowly the digger sank into a bog.
They stopped working and spent the evening discussing all the various options of how to extricate the digger. The last and obviously least popular option was to hire a bigger, heavier machine to haul it out. But to be honest, we figured the worst option we would actually have to deal with would be for Marty to dump most of the crap temporarily back in the stream so he could drive his way out.
Thursday we all had to work so we couldn’t do anything then.
Friday night Marty was back around and Troy and Jacqui turned up for the night. The guys gathered around the digger to assess the situation. Over 2 days 20 tonnes worth of digger had slowly but steadily continued to sink, with the driver's cab now level with the ground. Had the stream been at regular level the old girl would have been somewhat submerged!
And so the decision was made. We would tackle the cheapest option first. The boys drove up to Marty's to get his tractor. They returned with a tractor and chainsaws and all Saturday the boys chopped up trees from around the stream and the tractor drove the logs to the corner. Then Marty got in his digger and tipped it one way to lift the tread on one side. We hurled logs under the tread and slowly Marty lowered his digger. The logs sank into the earth but the tread had lifted a couple of feet. He tilted the digger to the other side and again we put logs under the tread. And so we carried on - left tilt, fill then right tilt, fill, left tilt, fill, and so on and so on and so on. Finally, as we neared the end of the day Marty was able to pull his digger out and we all breathed a tired sigh of relief.
Over the next few days Marty did several hours of stream clearing work. Not being used to moving trees he managed to accidentally break a few parts in the process and that halted proceedings somewhat. However he's managed to repair everything so far. Because of the unexpected delays the work is not yet finished but it is progressing nicely.
Where Are The Piglets? The Countdown Is On
Mabel and Rose were due this weekend, but so far nothing. Two big, fat very tired pigs but no nest building. We really need them to give birth this weekend as neither of us have booked or can take time off with back-to-back short weeks.
The girls are happier living in the shed together and we’ve thrown in a bale of hay to encourage them to build their nests inside.
Now we must just wait.
Sick Chick Becomes A Lady
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| Coppa & Lady |
Sick Chick, as she’s been affectionately called (for want of a better name), has been very slowly progressing healthwise. We have kept her on the verandah and in the bar while she gains some decent strength in her legs. Clare has been spending afternoons with her on the verandah, teaching her to climb and fly. With Clare’s physiotherapy sessions we felt happy to let Sick Chick out during the day to scratch around the patio area and work those legs.
Then one day we came home and Clare declared her name was now Lady, so Lady it is. She is progressing in leaps and bounds with Clare’s encouragement and is happy to sit on Clare’s lap as one would expect of a cat.
It goes without saying that we are grateful for Clare’s time and patience and the difference it is making for Lady. I even suggested, half-joking, that Clare might want to consider taking Lady with her as a travelling companion.
I imagine the sight of an English tourist with chicken in tow would cause quite a reaction. And photos of Lady at various tourist attractions around New Zealand would surely be rather amusing. I start to imagine Lady becoming a famous New Zealand chicken but I know Clare is not convinced about the practicalities and it isn’t going to happen.
It would make for a cool story though, “My Travels With Lady…”.
We Change Our Profile
So our Israeli HelpXer left and I thought about the slightly ill-fitting HelpXers we’ve had recently and I said to Aaron “I’m changing our Host profile”.
I rewrote it and basically said, without being rude, don’t bother applying unless you are genuinely interested in working on and learning about a farm.
I have done my best to put off anyone with notions that their stay with us will be a cruisey one.
Aaron read it and thought maybe it was a little harsh. Clare read it and said "I'd still ask to stay". So I left it a few days, amended a couple of sentences but I'd rather get a few keen HelpXers rather than lots of so so HelpXers.
I guess we'll see. If no one asks to stay anymore then I guess that means we need to change it again.
Jay and Bex Say Goodbye
12 months passes quickly and the countdown to leave NZ began. Jay and Bex visited a couple of times before they headed south for good. The last time with 4 of Jay’s family. We had a full house for a night and there was much food, drink, merriment and laughter.
The next day Jay’s family advised us we had completely changed their view of meat-eating. I hope we have. For every person who leaves here who thinks differently about meat it is a definite win in our book. I will happily host numerous tourists for the next 15 years if I think we are making a difference to the global meat industry.
And so they left. We hugged and Bex and I cried. Just meeting these two truly makes being a HelpX host worth it.
And so now Jay and Bex are in Aussie for another year of new experiences. It is a shame they can’t just drop in but we will keep in touch and hopefully catch up again next year.
I Start Popping Pills
There’s a group of us at work swapping DVDs, books and conspiracy theories about food, business and health. We’re educating ourselves about how to survive the 21st century. It sounds overly dramatic but the fact is, a number of medical and technology related advances in the 20th century have created disturbing trends in the 21st century.
How is it that we now have more diet and health foods, diet clubs and pharmaceuticals than ever before and yet we now have more obesity, ill-health and diseases than ever before?
I’d never actually stopped to think about it and then Food Inc and my brother’s Multiple Sclerosis came on the scene and suddenly I started getting a crash course in nutrition.
Between my research, my brother’s research and the research my colleagues are doing, my eyes have been opened to a whole new world. Mark at work lent me the DVD “Food Matters”. Aaron and I watched it and little alarm bells started going off because it sounded oh so disturbingly familiar.
And so once again our diet moved another step forward. We are now focusing on a plant based diet with whole grains, seeds, nuts, and fruit and supplements of Vitamins C and D, B-complex and Omega 3. Meat still features but now it complements a dish rather than dominates it.
Since Matt started his almost vegan diet and started taking regular supplements of Vitamin D and Omega 3 his health has changed dramatically. He’s lost a lot of weight and all symptoms of MS have disappeared.
And I learnt something interesting; most New Zealanders and Australians are considered extremely deficient in Vitamin D because of our extreme sun aversion but the medical profession doesn’t really see it as a problem. And yet a large number of modern inflammatory and immunity related conditions seem to affect people with low Vitamin D levels. The best way to get Vitamin D is through the sun, but of course the sun causes skin cancer, but low and behold, large doses of Vitamin C protect against skin cancer.
And so now I’m popping Vitamin C tablets every day and Vitamin D is next on my list, not only because I’m sure I’m deficient but also because I’ve read it may stop me getting Seasonal Affective Disorder. I’m also concerned about my continuing problem with dermatitis and so next on my list are Vitamin B and E, which apparently can alleviate if not cure symptoms.
I’ve talked to some sceptics but quite frankly, the sceptics I talk to seem to be firm believers of modern medicine and science. That most medical practitioners would rather prescribe a bottle of pills than a session with a nutrionist in treating ill health leaves me wondering about the sense of it all.
Bizarely enough, using good nutrition to cure ill health is actually classed as alternative medicine.
My father, with seriously blocked arteries has been advised a triple heart bypass is what he needs, not a change of diet. And yet, a healthy diet is known to reverse the damage of blocked arteries. There’s no money in it of course, not for the doctor and not for the pharmaceutical and medical supply companies. Bad diet was what got my father into this predicament so why wouldn’t a good diet just as effectively get him out of it?
Anyway, watch this space as I experiment on myself!
