Mazzy’s face in the morning sunrise on the plane
Day one:
Lyndal and Steve (our hosts for the next 3 months) are probably the most genuine people I’ve met thus far. Lyndal picked us up from the airport in Christchurch and we went and dipped our toes in the ocean at Pegasus Beach and then drove 40 minutes home to AislingQuoy. We toured most of the farm and then sat down and sorted through strawberries and boysenberries for a while.
The daily routine includes milking the goats and sheep twice a day and since we arrived at around 4pm NZ time, it was just in time for afternoon milking. Each of the goats and sheep have names and specific needs when it comes to milking which will take a little while to remember. All of the girls get very anxious when we let them down the runway into the dairy yard and they now the routine and all line up the same way every day. We put out alfalfa in various spots and each of them get a couple scoops of feed mixture made with various grains to eat while they’re being milked. Everything in the dairy container (a literal shipping container fixed up into a milking station) is done the same way every time and cleaned thoroughly every time- the animals need consistency. Halfway through the milking process the jet lag caught up with Mazzy and I so we finished up and called it a night and came in for dinner. We had a wonderful pork something with rice and then had a cheese board of cheeses Lyndal made- each named after the sheep or goat that produced the milk to make the cheese. Most everything we ate came from the farm. We had a delightful gooseberry tart with berries collected from the garden named after the most wonderful goat Masala. We talked a bit about politics and favorite movies and then at about 10:30 we crashed.
An excuse why I didn’t post yesterday
New bff
Day two:
Every day we wake up at 6:00 and have a light breakfast of toast and tea (or oats and fresh strawberries for me) and then we go and feed and milk the goats and sheep. In the morning, the milking machine is used on the goats and the sheep are milked by hand like usual. The cleaning process for the milking machine is quite extensive- we pump cold water through it twice, then a boiling soapy water pump, and then another two cold water rinses. Then we went and let out the sheep into the different grazing pastures and then went in for morning tea.
Feed time
Emlett escaped and Jazz felt responsible for herding her back in
Morning snack
Lyndal gave us a very extensive background on earthquakes in the area and we discussed what we would do if another one hit while we’re here. This is probably the safest place to be in the area, no fault lines are underneath us, and there are no large buildings or power lines close that could cause trouble. The southern alps sit on the alpine fault line which is also a subduction fault which causes many ruptures. There is right now a slow slip happening underwater SE of the north island which slowly releases pressure (which could be good) but no one can really predict exactly what it means. There hasn’t been nearly as much seismic activity in the past couple years (the southern alps haven’t had a great shift in 490 years) as there has been before which could mean nothing or could mean that something will happen soon… who knows. If you want to check up on the recent seismic activity go to New Zealand Quake Live online.
After morning tea we cleaned and chopped strawberries and made strawberry jam with fresh basil from the garden. The plum and apricot orchard is just ripening so we untangled nets and covered the trees to keep birds from picking the fruit once it’s ripened. We bopped around with the goats for a while, cuddling them and trying to remember their names. We also fed the rest of the sheep and goats that didn’t get fed when they were milked and made up feed for the animals for the rest of the day. Lunch consisted of a brilliant pea quiche Lyndal made and salad that we picked from the garden- kale, zucchini, romaine, carrot, and Lyndal’s cheese topped with homemade olive oil from Lyndal’s olive trees. We walked around the rest of the property looking at all of the native trees and bushes she has planted and all of the other cool plants she has. We picked fresh mint to dry and save for tea and red clover to use as antibiotics. Now it’s 5:00 and we’ve just returned and we’re taking an hour to write our blog posts and cool off. After this it’s back to milking and weeding the strawberries and raspberries and who knows what else.
Cheers
M
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