robin and i have safely arrived in the hawke’s bay region of new zealand! we were welcomed by the loving arms of malcolm and lindsay last night in our tiny caravan that somehow we are all sleeping in. this morning we got up early enough to see the sunrise, ate breakfast, packed lunches, and picked snack time apples from the apple trees seven feet in front of our caravan. waking up to new zealand continues to be exciting and beautiful.

robin and i start our nine hour apple picking work days on monday. malcolm and lindsay have been picking for a few days now, and they are feeling the burn. i am scurrred. but we will get good at it and soon be rolling in dough. maybe rich enough to buy each one of you a ticket to move here!

yesterday during our drive robin and i were trying to list all of the food we have eaten straight from the plant. literally picked it ourselves and then eaten it. lots of time it still has dirt (i call it “dirt” here, which is really my euphemism for horse manure) on it. we have come up with this so far:

peas
string beans
broad beans
apples
pears
plums
tomatoes
cucumbers
lettuce
fennel
bell peppers
lemons
limes
beets
arugula
silver beet
spinach
strawberries
boysenberries
raspberries
cherries
broccoli
cauliflower
custard apples (they are crazy and delicious!)
onions
carrots
spring onions
radishes
grapefruit
heaps of herbs including: thyme, basil, rosemary, cilantro, parsley, sorrell
a grape (i made a mistake and ate a not yet ripe one. much too sour.)

food that we have picked and then cooked a little bit before eating it because it’s kind of gross otherwise:

eggplants
corn
potatoes
squash
zucchinis
turnips
pumpkin

and we are only halfway through the summer. and haven’t even hit the fall harvest plants! this life is yummy, in all the senses of the word.

love,
maggie