i can't believe that tomorrow, after six weeks of living here(!), is our last full day at gilly and greg's. robin and i leave for our next farm, carolyn's, on the south island on friday. we plan to spend two nights on the road (halloween in wellington?!) and then catch the ferry to the south island on sunday, november 1st! we are excited to get to the south island but are so bummed to be leaving our picturesque life here. today we transplanted seedlings, made a new bed for the garden, fed the baby calves, and said many thank yous for our incredible fortune in finding the amazing shine family.

we have found such a routine of life here that it will be hard to break. saying goodbye will be almost like leaving home for yet another time. in the morning i wake up to come downstairs to everyone reading and drinking tea. lindsay out of the spider web mug, malcolm out of the kitty cat mug, my maori symbol mug is waiting out for me, and robin is sweet and uses whatever mug is available. we know these people, we have this life, it is filling and beautiful and right now i am sad to think of leaving it. pish posh, but what awaits us at carolyn's?

i am half excited/half scared of our drive to the south island. we hear the terrain is much more rugged and by some incredible new standard of beauty, much more stunning. the problem is is that our driving skills are fairly good for being on the different side of the road, but new zealand likes to provide each driving experience with a death-trap obstacle course. today, for example, going to get groceries, we dodged kids coming out of school. had today been rainy or had it been dark, i am afraid some of those near-toddlers (WHAT WERE THEY DOING WALKING ALONG THE SIDE OF THE ROAD?) would not have made it. gruesome, but true. tsk, tsk, i will get better. come visit! get in a car with me!

like all periods of my life that are extraordinarily peaceful and fun, time means nothing to us here. i know it is time to wake up when i am no longer sleepy. i know it is time for lunch when i am hungry. i know it is time to go to bed when i can hear the tui birds' crazy electronic song. a few weeks ago lindsay openly asked what day it was. robin, malcolm and i each responded with a different day of the week. we had no clue. not knowing the date or the time signifies vacation, or three-day weekends, or ghana, or camp, or farm life. and for this i am grateful.

today as we were giving the baby calves their milk bottle dinner the youngest one kept sucking on anything that protruded even a bit. including my finger, which i am worried will develop a baby-cow hickey and also including another (male) baby cow's downstairs bits. not an udder, my friend, not an udder.

baby everythings everywhere. cows, chicks, plants. i can't wait to come back to gilly and greg's sometime in 2010 and see everything all grown up. i will follow in typical old person fashion and reminisce about the past and question where the time has gone.

robin has put up pictures again! one i would like to draw particular attention to is a drawing of scout finch's costume of a ham with legs. this rendition of scout was composed by miss robin fail, who while drawing it on my cheek said "whoa, this looks kind of good." ask yourselves, at what point did she think it looked good?



love,
maggie

also, i saw my first newzea rainbow. they do exist here. TGIF. i mean, thank god for rainbows.

love,
maggie

help me rhonda, in a big way, you know? how in sinead o'connor's name am i supposed to write a blog about all that has been happening? well, i don't have to. you can read robin's! that was a joke. i have been pretty bad at jokes recently, so that may not have gone over too well. let me know.

first things first: i am entirely 100% squiggly happy here. it's such a nice feeling. what's so wonderful about NZ is that i don't feel like i have to choose anything. i can live in a big city and still have hikes, volcanoes, white and black sand beaches 20 minutes away. i can live a world away and still talk on clear phone lines. i don't have to decide between wanting to live near the mountains or near the ocean. i can have a modern, practical life that still respects this planet without having to live in africa. i am so grateful to feel like i don't have to make any decisions for a while on what i want the most because it is all available. i get to have all the options - a life buffet, really - and NZ is encouraging me, shouting good things always in the affirmative.

there has been a cute overload at gilly and greg's. ms. banty, the least naughty of the chickens, just had five baby chicks! there are three black ones and two cream colored ones! one of the babies died. rip, miss you everyday. on top of that, tomorrow we get four new baby calves! and we get to bottle feed them! and look at their inch long eyelashes! i am excited.

i didn't really see this coming, but i have truly enjoyed being around the animals on this farm (minus the chickens. NEVER the chickens). with different kinds of animals being in such close proximity, i have been able to watch them in a way i never have. i am discovering the entire world of beauty that is wrapped up in an animal's eye. the golf ball size amber looking eyes of the horses, the universe dense black of the sheep's bulbous eyes, the almost too-human eyelids covering the chicken's flat eyes. as not a particularly animal-loving girl,

***HAPPY NEW DAY IN MY TIME ZONE!*****

i had always classified animals as an entirely different category of life, but once i started studying their eyes, they have begun to look so human to me. how can i not have empathy for a creature who can look me in the eyes?

another animal i have been in close contact with recently: dolphin! this sounds almost too beautiful to be true, but yesterday (could it have been only yesterday?!) robin and i were traveling on the northeastern shore beach hopping when we came to a beach reserve called something that phonetically sounds like "taffranooey," but includes a "whp" combination in the spelling, so who knows. on this near deserted beach full of giant rocks and carved out caves and tiny bays and the kind of blue water that crayola realized was "cerulean," but better than anything else on this beach were the three wild dolphins that were swimming around in a calm bay! after we stood on the shore taking pictures of these three performatory dolphins for a few minutes, we realized we would be dummy monsters to not get into the freezing cold water to swim with the dolphins. i have never witnessed such incredible power and incredible restraint in an animal. we were standing waist-deep in our clothes with dolphins swimming so close to us we could literally put out our hands and touch them. it was such unusual magic. what creativity nature possesses in its ability to wow me at every moment of every day. standing with numb legs and an exploding smile watching dolphins felt like a sigur ros song.

this one, in fact:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4L_DQKCDgeM

i can't get over this life right now. all it needs is much loved and adored visitors to enjoy it with me.

love,
maggie

i'm at the restaurant right now, sitting in the office wearing all black waiting for malcolm who is washing dishes to finish so we can go back home to gilly and greg's. funny how easy all of this feels. yikes. sometimes life is very, very convenient.

here's something that i have given up: ambidexterity. i thought this year abroad in new zealand could be the year that i learn to be ambidextrous when i am doing farm work. i really want to be ambidextrous, and i think with enough training i can be. it was just that yesterday as i was using a handsaw to cut fence posts i realized, "hey mags, saws and hammers are not the tools on which to be learning how to use your left hand. keep using your right hand so that you keep both intact and then someday learn to use your left."

i hear malcolm finishing up. i think it's time to go back to the house! and some money direct deposited into my bank account! at $12.50/hour minimum wage, thank you very much!

love,
maggie

so, so, so! there has been so much that is wonderful in the past few days that it is difficult to frame this life in words. i will try.

since neither gilly nor greg worked on sunday (and it was the first beautiful and sunny day in quite a while!) they took the four of us wwoofers, four of their horses, and (for continuity's sake "four," but really many more) four family friends to a friend's farm on bethell's beach. as if a black sand beach with rugged undeveloped mountains, baby green - tropical almost - foliage lining them could be any more perfect, it was. some of us rode horses and some of us walked up to the tippy top of one of the mountains that lines the beach to see the perfection that is nature when water meets land. robin touched an electric fence on the top of the hill, looking down hundreds of feet to the water, and it was so beautiful, she didn't even mind. if you had to be a bouncing, dead human ball falling down the cliff to your death it would still be breath-taking.

many cute things have become a part of our days. so many cute things, in fact, that i have developed a bracket of sorts. round 1: two year old Zoe explaining why the chariot in her barn was dirty (it was used on the set of Xena, which was filmed at her farm. duh.) v. toothless baby calf sucking on my hand thinking it was a bottle. baby calf moves on to the second round. round 2: same baby calf a day later at the black sand beach farm foolishly eating a piece of trash v. twelve ducklings so tiny and so baby that they were still in obvious egg shape. dozen barely-not-eggs win. i can't imagine what could beat the ducklings.

robin and i are still loving, LOVING gilly and greg's! we can't believe that we have already been here for three weeks. if it is any testament to this farm and our amazingly generous hosts, we are staying until the end of october after which we are headed to a new farm on the south island. we are committed to not staying in one place for too long, but we are learning so much at gilly and greg's! we are learning how to build fences and make compost and till gardens and distract chickens from eating our newly planted seeds. every day i go to sleep with a supreme sense of accomplishment that until this period of life i have not yet understood. working the land while working your body is an unexpected euphoria.

here's something: another reason we are staying here for a few more weeks is that we accidentally got jobs. the manager at gilly's restaurant hired robin and me to pick up shifts for the next few weeks. today i drove our car to drop off paperwork for direct deposit into my new zealand bank account before returning a movie to blockbuster and getting a new book from the local library! see how much of a life we have here?

i worked at the restaurant as a waitress (with no training, yikes!) for the evening shift this past saturday. some interesting differences between dining in america and new zealand: "entree" means main course in america; appetizer, in new zealand. refills (and cavities) are not free. everyone orders dessert. no one speaks spanish in the kitchen. some similarities i found: wait staff once again appear to be enjoying a perpetual funeral, as we still have to wear solid black. restaurant "culture" is much the same with everyone smoking and cursing in the back of the kitchen. people pay for their food.

look at all of the homes i am collecting. hickory, chapel hill, ghana, and now new zealand. what a pleasure it has been in all of them.

love,
maggie

i can't remember who couldn't believe how big the calla lilies are in new zealand, but here is a picture of one that is the size of my head. and i have been told i have a big head (thank you boocifer, kevin, ross, et cetera).

this calla lily was a weed. a weed, for crying out loud. see how new zealand is often too good to be true? robin and i are lucky little birds. robin is actually a bird.

also, you should visit robin's picasa album because she is a good girl and actually uploads pictures. just trust that everything she has taken a picture of, i have it too, just a much poorer shot and on a terrible quality chinese purchased camera.

http://picasaweb.google.com/RobinEFail

yesterday there was a moment when i got to say, "in one arm i've got a hugcrow, and in the other i've got some worm tea."

let me explain.

"hugcrow" is the term we have developed for robin when she is being the sweetest lady waiting for a hug. yesterday she was standing by the pumpkin patch while i watered it in a very scarecrow position. when i asked her if she was a scarecrow, she responded that she was a hugcrow. hugcrows get hugs. check.

on to the worm tea. worm tea is created in a giant keg looking thing where worms swim around in mulch and rich dirt and water and then poop out all of the yummy nutrients for the garden. all you have to do is tap that thing, fill up your watering can with worm tea, and you are bound to have a beautiful garden. see how easy life can be with worm tea?

love,
maggie

last night around 4:20 (eyemuffs, mom and dad. everyone else: 4/20 Y'ALL. jokes, jokes.) i was woken up by two different calls of nature. the more pressing one was self inflicted, as i always tend to drink too much water right before going to bed. the second one was an untimely rooster. the good news about the REM cycle interruption was that I SAW THE BEST MOON SKY OF MY LIFE. when i woke up to go downstairs to use the restroom, i poked my head in robin's room to wake her so she could see the moon as well. but she looked so sweet and seriously sleeping. i left her alone. but what she missed was the brightest full moon i have ever encountered. so bright that my flashlight to get downstairs was completely unnecessary and any kind of nightlight from the computer screen seemed superfluous. the clouds were doing that silver ghost thing that they often do when crowded in the night sky by something as mind-blowing as a full moon. AND! i thought that i could see orion to the right of the moon being all orion-y, but it seems wrong that i could see him on the southern hemisphere. which of you fools took astronomy for your science lab? let me know if it was possible to spot him.

in other news, we built a fence around the new herb garden today! once more, i am still having to will my muscles to be of any use, but they are learning to comply without such resistance as they once did. my recent favorite mantra to get them to do anything is simply commanding of them, "muscles, ignite!" they rarely do.

farm life is still totes the good life. today i realized that i have been wielding a shovel for various tasks that stands as tall as my eyebrows. i am learning all sorts of new things. it is so satisfying to see how cyclical farm life is and how patient this earth and these farmers tend to be. it is a long process to scoop horse manure into a heap, mix it with the food scum that should never see the light of day, wait for it to decompose, till the land, add the compost, plant the seeds, wait, wait, wait, and then you get to munch on your beautiful and hard work. nature likes circles, wouldn't you say? except when we drive cars too much and waste, waste, waste and then this planet says "BITE ME, I AM GOING TO RUIN YOU ALL!" sorry, planet.

malcolm just got back from working today with gilly at her restaurant, leaving robin, lindsay, and me to work outside today. it is nice when the four of us get back together even just after a few hours apart. i really adore malcolm and lindsay and are so glad that they are just a small example of the people patiently waiting in my future life for me to meet and enjoy.

here's a question: where are all the newzea rainbows? although today is sunny and crisp, the past week has been rain central with the sun only making sporadic unannounced appearances. i figured that with all the moisture in the air, we would get many a rainbow, but i have yet to see one! in which corner of the world are all the rainbows hiding? because i love each of you, i hope they have found their way into your days.

love,
maggie

robin and i bought a car! so now you can all come visit and we can pick you up! and you can have a history lesson while you are at it by sitting in a 1988 toyota corona and playing music on a tape deck. AND you can have an automotive death threat while we learn to drive on the left hand side of the road! doesn't that sound like a lot of half way scary fun?

so far here is what we know about driving cars in NZ:
1. whoa - where are the road signs? it is easy to get confused on the motorways.
2. in a similar fashion to american vehicles, these cars also require a monetary exchange for petrol. bummer.
3. when three out of the four windows in your car work, it's better than kincaid's.

i am still so happy. i can't believe that this gets to be my life right now. gilly and greg are still wonderful and so generous. EXUBERANCE AND LIFE are all balled up into everything i understand new zealand to be. even when west auckland is terribly foggy (which it has been for the past few days), it is still unusually beautiful, as it simply looks as if the world has caught on green grass fire and the smoke is hovering about the trees.

love,
maggie