Grand Final 2013 - getting there

It's Grand Final time again.

It was Grand Final time,

last week,

which seems about five minutes ago.

My fulla and I headed off on a sunny Friday morning

from Christchurch to Picton.

The weather was fine and we made good time.

We got to Blenheim (the town before the Picton harbour)

and discovered my work credit card wouldn't work.

No worries.

This was followed closely by a txt from the 

Interislander Ferry people 

letting us know that our ferry was delayed due to extreme weather.

Long story short.

Our 6:30pm sailing finally left at 10:30am the next morning.

We took a wander around Picton.

You sure can't mistake the toilets in Picton.

For some reason I posted on Facebook

that we were delayed and voila!

We got a phone call from lovely Claude to say 

come and stay with her family. 

Being polite and naive we really believed we would be sailing soon.

Gosh the ferry people said we would.

We had a 1:30am, 6:25am and finally a 10:30am sailing.

Our hosts thought we were a hoot.

They knew better.

They use the ferries all the time.

We set out early to make sure we were at the front of the car queue.

So that meant breakfast on the road.

Chicken sandwiches.

I love rotisserie chickens.

While waiting in line,

my fulla bumped into his mate from home.

They hadn't seen each other for about five years so 

a catch up was in order.

Culturally this requires sharing food.

Thank goodness for a handy dandy fruit loaf on hand.

We set out on peaceful seas.

Through the Marlborough Sounds and out into 

Cook Strait.

I now hate Cook Strait.

For goodness sake, I have traveling on these ferries

since I was a baby.

My Poppa would take me and Punky Pete across

in the highest of seas and let us run wild

while he propped up the bar and

yarned with his old railways mates.

This was the day I was introduced to sea sickness.

I puked.

I never puke.

My fulla took his sweet time to get a sick bag for me

but I held on,

then I puked and felt so much better.

we stayed with my super uncle for the night

then headed off to Auckland.

We got a flat tire on the very heavy trailer.

Thank goodness for my fulla cause

in  all seriousness I would have sat down and 

cried if I had been alone.

I couldn't even figure out how the jack worked.

And it was already dusk.

And I was super tired.

But my husband saved the day.

We hadn't even got near Auckland.

It was already a long week.

Organic Puna

It's our last couple days in Hawaii.

I think all of us are well and truly ready to go home.

I'm even looking forward to sitting by the fire and

being toasty warm while it's bitterly cold outside.  

Surprisingly Hawaii has not been that warm.  

For a tropical island that relies on tourism

they could have a little consistency in temperature.  

This is an island of change.

Cool misty rain in Waimea, heat and humidity in Kona,

dry and desert like in between,

actually in between Waimea and Kona.  

What I really have not enjoyed is air conditioning.

I just don't understand why anyone would want to freeze themselves all the time.  

It really is not that hot in Hawaii!

It could be that we've spent our time with ranchers and

they dress western style - jeans and boots, all day, everyday.  

I guess they do that because their animals are less tame than ours.  

Actually that's ridiculous.

Animals are as tame or as wild as you let them be.  

Gentleness goes a long way with animals.... and people.  

But this is not the American way.  

Almost everything about America is brash and aggressive

but in the most polite way.  

We visited Jeff and Lynn at Kopoho,

 down on the coast near Puna.  

According the Hawaiian kids with us Puna is ghetto.

According to Becky, Puna isn't that bad.  

From what I saw, it looks the same as anywhere else we've been on the Big Island. 

Until we headed down to the coast.  

You know those hippies from the 60s?

I know where they've gone.  

Old hippies don't OD or fade away on the edges of Berkley,

they move to Puna.  

It's hot, humid and bra optional.  

Jeff and Lynn moved to Puna right down by the 'beach'.

Really a lumpy, bumpy coast made up of pahoehoe lava.

This part of the island is recent lava flow, as recent as the 1960s.

Jeff and Lynn moved from Northern California ten years ago,

a long time after the '60s,

which they probably remember through the haze of Haight Ashbury summer of love.

They moved away from high land prices

as they were to retire early and wanted to create their own garden of Eden.

Sorry for the referrence to conventional, conservative values there.

Jeff was keen to move back to the northern East Coast but

they vacationed in Hawaii and being good, kind of corporate California hippies

visited the Big Island where Lynn felt the bond with the land.  

It's Pele

(the goddess not the soccer player)

who creates the connection with women.  

I must say I think I've felt it myself.

Jeff and Lynn are gently carving out a diverse garden of fruits, working with the land,

bending to the will of the weather and climate.  

Their three acres in a long, narrow strip rolling back from the Pacific are filled with

star fruit, avocado, pineapples, coconut, papaya, mango and banana trees

with vege patches surrounded with comfrey and healing herbs

with a few noni trees filling in the spaces.  

Not mention vanilla pods.

The kids and the rest of us wandered around listening to

Jeff and Lynn explain what the trees were and

what they produced, their healing qualities and how they were cared for,

what grew well and what failed and why.

 

Their gentleness held the undercurrent of their Americanness.

Their care was authoritarian and convienced theirs is the way,

the only way, bless them. 

They didn't really see the irony of their words as they decried Monsanto

(which, oddly is in this computer's predictive text)  

while setting about bending their environment to their will.  

But they did it in a pleasing and caring way.  

They fed us with a fruit salad made up of fruit from their garden.

Freshly grated coconut and cups fill of coconut water,

mushy papaya, crisp star fruit, firm mango and the most delicious white pineapple.

We ate their fruit and

(above delightful Tessa, graceful Lauren and refreshing Laura)

I observed the cultural differences.

Hippies aren't that different from the ranchers,

the women just don't wear bras.

This may be horse related.

On July 5th Louly and I took ten young New Zealand farm kids to Hawaii for an agricultural exchange for two weeks. They are members of the NYZF TeenAg programme. We were hosted by East Hawaii 4H specifically the Beatons and Stouts. We visited many kinds of agricultural and horticultural operations, varied and diverse, learned that American ag folks like to philosophise about their place in the world and had a great time snorkeling and shopping in the sun. These posts are in no particular order cause I was too busy to post while in Hawaii and can be rather abstract and should only be taken as an inaccurate at best record.

Water

Since I've come to Hawai'i I've come to appreciate drinking water.

You'd think after all the earthquakes and

free flowing sewerage/water that I'd have this sussed but I don't.

My life is too soft and my memory too short.

At home I fill water bottles everyday, one for the car and one for work.

About three litres everyday.  

Our tap water is unfloridated and not too chlorinated and

fresh from the huge, pure aquifers under the Canterbury Plains.

Sweet, fresh from the ground.

Here in Hawaii people get their water from where they can.  

There are deserts there you know!

 

Its all the usual places you get water from 

rain water,  run off, ground water, springs and of course town water.  

To be honest, it all, with the exception of the spring water tastes pretty foul. 

So you drink bottled water and of course there are million brands.  

My choice in NZ is Pump.  

In Hawaii there are plenty of good brands

and very pretty looking brands too.

Me and Louly sampled a bunch of them and

ended up drinking the prettiest bottle.

One of which made it home with me

and now resides on my bathroom floor.

I really have lost my housekeeping mojo.

On July 5th Louly and I took ten young New Zealand farm kids to Hawaii for an agricultural exchange for two weeks. They are members of the NYZF TeenAg programme. We were hosted by East Hawaii 4H specifically the Beatons and Stouts. We visited many kinds of agricultural and horticultural operations, varied and diverse, learned that American ag folks like to philosophise about their place in the world and had a great time snorkeling and shopping in the sun. These posts are in no particular order cause I was too busy to post while in Hawaii and can be rather abstract and should only be taken as an inaccurate at best record.

Kilauea Iki

There is actually a place called Volcano in Hawai'i.

Strangely enough it is on a volcano

as is the island of Hawai'i 

Actually it might be on a number of volcanoes

I wasn't paying that much attention to the informational movie we watched.

But I do remember that the reason Hawai'i looks like

God spilled his dinner across the Pacific is because

as the islands grew from spewing upwards from under ocean volcanoes

earthquakes moved the existing islands eastwards

and the island of Hawai'i just has not moved for an age

so is the Big Island by default,

(no earthquake pun intended).

Volcano day started out with what we would call a walk but

the Americans seem to think it was a hike. 

This was really only from the Americans I overheard when we stopped 

at the steam vents on our way to the Visitors Centre
discussing hiking to the half mile to the Visitors Centre.

We were staying with Hawaiians,

completely different from Americans.

They don't sound like Americans,

though they listen like Americans.

They don't dress like Americans,

mostly cause they live in a shoe optional world.

They don't look like Americans

because as a rule Pacific Islanders are a blip on the radar of

American racial diversity.

They should be happy that's the case I think.

Maybe the definition of hike is in a wood like area rather

than our kiwi version which would be a serious effort for a number of hours and

largely up hill, both ways, in heavy, dark, damp, cold bush.

Really.

This walk was alongside a road through a pretty National Park.

Thirteen kids, Louly and I walked not even a mile to

the Volcano National Park Visitors Centre

to listen to Ranger Julia talk about the inception of Hawaii.  

Did you know there is a new island growing under the sea to the west of the island of Hawaii?

Lo'ihi is its name,

it should be ready in a few hundred thousand years.

That's something to look forward to.

We watched two movies about volcanoes.

The second one was supa old and like it was made by Disney circa 1955.

It showed the 1959-60 eruption of Kilauea iki that flowed through Kopoho

where we were the day before visiting with Jeff and Lynn,

the Northern Californian Hippies Inc.

 There was actually an eruption as a result of the Kilauea Iki eruption

 in the middle of Kopoho township

burning the buildings they couldn't move.  

It's crazy to think that only 52 years ago lava flowed freely devouring everything in its wake.

We walked back to hot dogs for lunch at KMC

then onto the Jagger Museum,

named for Mr/Dr Jagger volcanist extraordinaire.  

The Museum was stuffed full of people avoiding the 90 degree heat,

which was only really hot if you were out in the sun.

 We drove to Thurston Lava Tunnels and

took a cool walk through shady bush

 and a massive tunnel provided by an air bubble.

Above are the kids racing to get to the tunnel.

Even the Hawaiian kids moved fast for this one,

Zac and Keoni are there in the middle behind Laura.

I know, doesn't this look like New Zealand???

Except that there are paths and people are wearing summer clothes.

We then drove to the Devastation Walk and

we walked across a moon like scape

surrounded by Ohia (Pohutukawa/Rata) trees.

Jacob here has found one of Pele's tears.

She cried them all over place

I would hope because she felt remorse for erupting all over the place

and burning up all the flora and evicting the fauna.

Claudia and Kate leading the way,

hoping no doubt that the carpark and utes are not far away.

(they weren't too far, just through the trees,

Americans make everything convenient, except shopping centres).

We walked until we arrived back at the Kilauea Iki crater.

Thats the 1959-60 eruption one.

Iki means small but it's pretty damn big if you ask me.

I need one of those proportion things in these photos.

The photo below was taken with my camera on it's supa extra zoom.

These people are mental cause that surface has not exactly cooled from 50 years ago

and it's a flipping hike (and actual hike) back up to the top of the crater.

I hope they had water with them.

I recommend the Hawai'i Springs brand,

they have the prettiest bottles.

All roads led to a crater. 

Below is Kilauea crater which as been gurgling away since 1983.

Kilauea means spewing.

I'm going to use kilauea to describe how angry I am in the future.

It's said killer-way-a, if you are saying it with a NZ accent

(words ending in -er are said -ah)

We just called it killer whale,

I don't think anyone noticed.

We headed down to the coast to follow the pathways of the lava from Kilauea Iki.

There are two types of solid lava.

A'a which is the sucky stuff that cuts if you are fool enough to fall on it or

walk on it in bare feet

(which of course is exactly what we did most of the time)

and pahoehoe which is the smooth lava

that reminds me of the top of a chocolate brownie

(what? I was hungry!).

Am I right???

A burnt brownie but I'd still eat it with ice cream.

And because I was responsible for ten young lives we let them on the lava clifts
with the sea dashing itself agianst them,
splashing so high up atop the cliffs.

When we returned to KMC from our volcano day

the kids ate and bowled

then we broke into to groups and visited the Kilaeau crater at night.

This about how far away we were.

We could just see the glow of the lava

but being not a huge fan of natural and violent kine

this was plenty close.

It was awesome though.

I tried to take photos without a flash

but I could only hold still for so long

(which turns out to be seconds).

And that was our Volcano National Park day.

On July 5th Louly and I took ten young New Zealand farm kids to Hawaii for an agricultural exchange for two weeks. They are members of the NYZF TeenAg programme. We were hosted by East Hawaii 4H specifically the Beatons and Stouts. We visited many kinds of agricultural and horticultural operations, varied and diverse, learned that American ag folks like to philosophise about their place in the world and had a great time snorkeling and shopping in the sun. These posts are in no particular order cause I was too busy to post while in Hawaii and can be rather abstract and should only be taken as an inaccurate at best record.



not everyone

makes it to Grand Final.

Some of the Young Farmers spend the most important part of the year (Grand Final, TBfree NZYF Conference, duck shooting) in places like Australia seeding or Britain or the US/Canada  for harvest or shearing like my mate Shaun Bradley from Taihape.  He's written a bit about his annual experiences in Western Australia.

The goings on in a day of a Wheat seeding programe on a Western Australia Farm.

Chilwell – is a family run farming operation consisting of 3 brother and a father.

Andrew Fowler, the eldest son is the director of the company and pretty much the big boss. He overseas the cropping programme consisting of about 17,500ha of canola, barley, wheat and ryegrass. Simon Fowler is in charge of the stock side of things. Running around 25,000 merino and perendale X ewes and about 2,500 cattle. Tim Fowler is.........well no one actually knows what Tim does but he is very good at looking occupied....yeh you get my drift. Richard, the father, just sifts about doing odd jobs here and there and then buggers off into town for a few days a week where they have a house.



The main block, Chatham is around about 100kms east of Esperance down the SE of WA. Esperance is a seaside town with amazing beaches and a great relaxed vibe to it.

In total the Fowlers run have around 25,000ha to look after. 10,500ha is owned by them and the rest is made up of lease land and share cropping. The land is spread over 6 different properties within a radius of about 30km from the main shed. The Company employs around 10 full time staff, not including the 3 brothers. There are 4 stockies, and the rest are cropmen and cropwomen, a grader/loader driver and a mechanic. During the Seeding and Havest times, casuals come in. There are 11 toyota landcruisers on the joint plus a couple of dualcabs for late night missions to town to drink the pub dry.



I came about this job through the mate Matt Wrenn who is full time out here, Matt is from Oringi back home in NZ, Oringi is half way between Woodville and Daniverke. Matt drives one of the big Nitro sprayers that are used excessively with a cropping programme.

The 2012 seeding season is the Fowlers biggest programme they have put in, recently aqquired lease land has jumped the programme from 11,500 to what it is now. Putting the crop in are two New Holland pivot steer tractors, 500hp, with a 60ft bar. Tractors run for around 21hours a day, 2 shitfts are run with day shift starting at 6am through till 3pm then night shift from 3pm through to 3am.



Before we seed the paddocks, a team of 3 sprayers have been getting paddocks ready for the last month or so. A knockdown spray a week or two before the paddocks are seeded to kill all weeds, grass and clover. 24Hrs before the paddock is seeded a pre-emergence spry is applied to stop any weeds that werent killed by the Roundup. The sprayers are kept very busy after seeding spraying the crops for more weeds and any insecticides and bugs that may appear. There are 3 sprayers out here, 2 self propelled (Nitros) theyve got 120ft booms on them so can get through the work, and a tow behind sprayer behind a tractor.


So im on night shift for seeding, you may think night shift is a bit average but infact its far better than during the day. So I usually wake up around midday, doing the usual chores, make lunch, washing and all that. Around 2:30pm I leave the house and go and pick up Keeri-lee, she is on nights with me. Kerri-lee is a local lass from esperance who has been driving tractors since she left school, she is 19. We arrive at the paddock round 3 and take over, during the day Brooke is on my tractor. Brooke is also a local Esperance girl, and Matts girlfriend. On the other tractor during the day is Neo, shes from Ireland and is out with her partner Colm who is on a sprayer.

So we rock up, get our debrief from the girls and then get into it. Every 20ha we get out and check all the pipes for blockages so that all the tynes are seeding. There is about 60 odd pipes and it only takes a few minutes to check and clear the odd blockage. Every 60 -70ha we get refilled with seed, fertiliser and liquid fert. Nights is good because everyone else is at home so we dont get bothered and were left to our own devices, and also at nights the suns not out so it doesnt put me to sleep. When we get closer to 3am we decide whether we park up at 3 or push on for another hour and get the paddock finished, depending on the paddock sizes.

Because this place run a lot of stock the sizes of the paddocks are on average 100ha so as to keep control on the grazing side of things and making mobs of stock also more controlable. But we do get bigger paddocks, on some of the new lease blocks we can get up to 300ha for one paddock so we would be stuck in there all night. On average we can get around 240ha seeded in a night, all up we average around 400ha for a day.

So then when we finish we shut the tractors down, jump in the ute and make a b-line for home and bed.



Seeding for the Fowlers this year will take about 2 months, at this stage we are nearing the end with about 4000ha remaining. Everyone is starting to look forward to the finish and abit of time off. We do get to take a day off when we want and if we want it. Most have taken a day off a week. I have a bit of a different attitude to the rest, mainly being a kiwi and having a kiwi attitude ive not taken anytime off since we really got busy so will probably end up going 5 weeks straight. Its interesting to see different peoples views on that, as being mostly non kiwis here they dont really understand that and think its mad. Maybe it is? I dont know, but thats just me, Im here to get the crop in so thats what ill do, its money for jam. Being on nights ive not been to the pub at all so have saved plenty. But the time will come where I do make it to the pub, then lookout cause itll be a blowout of all proportions. We are busy planning our cutout and farewells as we all head of in different directions and different countries.

Myself I'm off to England for the harvest up there. I am looking forward to that an experiencing what that will bring, but at the same time am also looking forward to heading back home to NZ.



Nat Com and Social Media

I have no idea why I gave social media caps there in the title.

It's been National Committee meeting again this past weekend.

I flew to Wellington from Nelson on Thursday evening

Over the Marlborough Sounds to the big city.

I swear I am allergic to cities.

Friday morning I walked from my hotel to the supermarket

my eyes started weeping,

my head started getting stuffy,

and I realised I am allergic to the city.

I realise this often.

As often as I forget it.

These are some of the National Committee members.

Spud is hiding behind the camera cause he is a sook.

Some of my favourite people are in this photo.

And some are not in it.

Ok so at Nat Com we discuss and build strategy for the

Young Farmer organisation.

This weekend we discussed and organised

a heaps of committees.

It was Young Farmers old school styles.

The important things to know about Nat Com are;

1. We have three meetings a year,
2. Regional Chairs and one Vice Chair from each Region attend - that's 14 people.
3. Nat Com is the engine room of the Young Farmers organisation.
4. Nat Com is currently lead by Nessie.
5. There's a fines session last thing on the last day.
6. There are guest speakers.
7. It's pretty hard work.
8. I made sure there is lots of food and the attendees make sure there is lots of beer.
9. And then they drink copious amounts of it.
10. There is seldom any beer left after Nat Com.
11. If for any reason relating to alcohol you are unable to function during a Nat Com meeting you have to pay your airfare and accommodation costs back,
12. This has happened only once.

This Nat Com was a really busy and successful one.

We have had a few duds in the past.

This one got a fair bit decided and confirmed.

Then we went out to dinner to Cafe Istanbul

where Scotty (forefront above) and Spud (is a photophobe)

had fish and chips instead of yummy Turkish food.

And beer was consumed.

On Sunday we had Tom Phillips come along and

talk to us about social media.

Tom is my best favourite blogger that I ever met in person.

Ok he is only the third real life blogger I've met in person.

It was a good interactive session and now!

And now!

We have a couple more Young Farmer members tweeting.

That's pretty darn exciting.

Sunday night I flew back to Nelson,

drove to Leeston,

fell into bed

then bounced out of bed at 6am,

went to work in Methven

and then drove up to Christchurch to fly to Wellington

that I'd only left less than 24 hours before.

Tomorrow I'll be telling the TBfree New Zealand Board

all about this social media malarky

and a fair bit about what NZYF has been up to

and what we spend their sponsorship money on.

Now I just have go to sleep then wake up nice and early to get that sorted.

it's 8am

and I am finding it very hard to go to work, or get dressed for that matter. Do you think I can go to work in my jamas? I'm sure no-one would notice cause my jama top is a Swazi bush t-shirt (go have a look at the photo on Swazi's homepage, cause that's what weather is like here at the moment but darker) but I would have to wear pants. They may notice that I think.

So other work 'issues' I've had of late. On Monday I lost a British (she is from Northern Ireland, and I don't care what the history is, two countries on such a small island just doesn't make sense to me) exchangee.

Seriously, I was having a fit racking my brain trying to find this girl who was meant to arrive in Auckland last Sunday morning. Admittedly, I had forgotten about organising anyone to meet her but then I figured she was a big girl and would be able to fend for herself cause it's not like Auckland is deepest, darkest Africa or anything. After all I was 18, fresh out of school when I flew to California by myself to meet with people I didn't even know what they looked like and that worked out fantastically well.

On Monday evening I discovered that blessed Icelandic volcano had kept her in Belfast (or nearby countryside cause she is a farmer girl) and she isn't due to arrive until Saturday morning of this weekend which makes her almost in line with all the other exchangees (who I have no idea where they are either but they have a meeting point at Maccas on Sunday).

McDonalds is the travellers oasis. Reliable, visible, warm and with clean loos - good old McDonalds. Always there.

Right I need eat my breakfast steak, get away from this warm fire, shower and put some pants on and go to work.... uggggghhhh!