The farm where we were working was such a fantastic find that I don’t think I could say enough good things about it. The family of four (the mom, dad, and two teenage sons) usually have WWOOFers around at any given time, and are cheerfully welcoming of those who come through their doors. There was a host of WWOOFers present during the month, with the total count going as high as seven at one point. As most of the orders of cut flowers need to be gathered and sent out in the week following up to Christmas, the family very much needs the help from the travellers, and so the house was bustling with representatives from Britain, Japan, Malaysia, and of course, Canada. Glen and I, being the only couple among the WWOOF crew, got the honours of being given the main guest room, complete with a queen sized bed and closet. We had our clothes out of the backpacks and hung in the closet within 15 minutes of getting our room. These sorts of things are exciting after living out of backpacks for three months.
As a point of interest, the flowers we were picking are called Lucospermum, and they are a variety of protea. The farm grows three varieties:
Highgold
Tango
Harry Chittick
The aren’t that difficult to pick, provided that the picking efforts don’t disintegrate into a snowball-style flower fight. The flower heads make excellent missiles, especially if the flowers haven’t opened completely. They also cause massive hayfeaver (the Japanese guy got hit the worst, and I made good use of the anti-histamines that I brought from Canada), and are filled with bees. No wasps, mind, just bees.
Here is one of the flower fields. The hill is deceptively steep; no need for squats when you've got flower farm hills to climb:
The work was similarly very good. Weather permitting, we made as early a start of the day as possible so that we would be finished picking before the sun got really hot. At the start of the month we had a few days off, and we were given time off when the weather was too bad to go out picking. We were usually in the fields at 7:30, and would often be finished both picking and grading (done in the packhouse, which is quite temperate) by noon or one o’clock.
Here is where we grade the picked flowers - picking off bugs and bird poo, cutting the stems to the proper lengths, etc. The packhouse is wonderfully cool, so we were out of the sun and the heat by the time things got really toasty. Plus, you can flick the cut-off ends of the stems at other people really hard if you get the wrist motion and timing of the stem snipping just right. If you aim is really good, you can bounce the stem ends off people's foreheads.
Once the final flower orders were sent out on the 23rd, we were given several days off until the family clears out the house on the 28th to make room for some visiting friends. We all spend a fabulous Christmas here, eating entirely too much food on the very sunny patio, which overlooks one of the harbours.
Christmas breakfast - the start of a day of gorging:
This is what the weather was like all day, as viewed from the patio. Are you jealous yet?
We’ve done quite a bit that wouldn’t make for a particularly interesting post, so I shall give you something of a point-form summary of a few of the highlights:
-meeting the family’s three legged cat, who drools everywhere when cuddled.
-having an entire travel mug of freshly boiled tea dumped on me by Glen, who felt that the tea would look better on my leg than in the cup. I swore extremely loudly and startled a conservationists’ meeting that John (the resident patrician) was hosting. Yes, it hurt. Yes, there are still burn marks.
-Doing large batch cooking with the most adorably hilarious Japanese girl ever (the food was prepared in advance and then frozen for the busy picking days when we would be too buzy/tired to want to cook dinner for 12 adults).
-Getting nailed squarely in the eye with an unopened and rock-hard Highgold head during a vicious flower fight. Much to my irritation, the eye did not bruise, despite staying slightly swollen and tender for a couple of days.
-Glen getting stung by bees twice in the space of 20 minutes.
-Making and distributing massively rich, creamy, fatty, boozy egg nog for a whole bunch of people who have never before discovered the delights of homemade egg nog – home made, not that vile store-bought stuff, which you can’t get here anyway.
We leave here tomorrow, and will be staying in Christchurch for a few days with Julie’s (the resident matron) cousin, who has kindly extended visiting invitations to the WWOOFers to stay with her while in the city. Indecision and procrastination has led us to be uncertain as to where we will go afterwards; we do have an offer at another WWOOF place, but the more we review it, the less pleasant it sounds. We’re hoping to find somewhere else to WWOOF at in this area, and afterwards we will do a road-trip, sleep-in-the-back-of-the-wagon style tour of the south tip of the island. Maybe we’ll spend a day or two here and there in a hostel so that we can get cleaned up and have a proper meal. There aren’t too many WWOOF places in that area that we are interested in, so we may or may not bother trying to set something up.
And now, in order to make you even more wildly jealous, a few pictures of our lottery-win December situation:
This is the view from the living room and TV room:
A bunch of us trooped off to an isolated beach one afternoon. The resident heard of cows took a keen interest in the vehicle, and surrounded the truck, poking their runny noses inside. They were skittish and backed off as soon as we came up, but they may have very well attempted to steal the radio:
We went to Christchurch during one rainy day. While inspecting the Christchurch Cathedral, we discovered that there was no way to escape the flowers - the Harry Chitticks had followed us to town and took up residence on the pulpit:
Our rainy day trip also took us to the Christchurch art gallery, which was great fun. There was a display of knitted bonsai trees that were particularly ticklish:
There was also a weird exhibit that was basically a big cardboard tube with a gentle suction. We didn't realize what it was until I looked into it and it sucked my hair right up the tube:
Glen wanted in on the vacuum action:
In Christchurch there is an import store that supplied all sorts of foreign items. The store is teeeeeeeeny, doesn't seem to be organized in any sort of recognizable pattern, and is possibly one of the most delightful stores we've ever walked in to:
December was fantastic, and this was due in no small part to our wonderfully hospitable hosts, who went above and beyond to make us feel at home, and the other WWOOFers who we chummed around with. We'll be stopping in again some time to visit on our way back up the island, to say hello and share whatever wine we pick up along the way. We had a blast, we made friends, we struck gold!
No comments:
Post a Comment