Tonka Toys!

After the milling of the big pine the digger came in to do some heavy lifting work. One of his jobs was to roll the rather large pine logs down the hill so that Jono could mill them on the flat. This was a bit nerve racking to watch as at times as the logs were being rolled down the hill the digger looked as though it was going to tip over, however they all got safely down to the bottom of the hill. The other job the digger came to do was to help us make our rock wall at the edge of our lawn to keep the sheep out, the rock wall was being put in to upgrade a bit from having a boring old fence. First of all he had to dig out a space to put the rocks, and then carefully placed the huge rocks along the edge, each rock probably weighing on average half a tonne. Rob made this job look easy, picking up these heavy rocks as though they were as light as feathers. Very excited about the rock wall, and now comes the job of levelling out the lawn and growing some grass.

Green Eggs & Ham

Bex and Kerry-Anne having a cuddle with our new little chickies!

TIMBER!!!

Another big project that is happening on the farm is that we are building a farmstay cottage, getaway, retreat type place. We want to build it eco friendly and also from all or mostly timber from off the farm. These are photos from the day the miller man Jonothan chopped down a couple of 95 year old pines. They were absolutely massive and the way Jono made them fall down in exactly the place he wanted them to fall was impressive. Was quite an experience to watch Jono work and also to watch these huge tree come down.

Garden Progress

So after returning home to Waitetuna Valley my first big project was to get the rather large vege garden sorted. It was absolutely choca with weeds, mostly dock which is a major pain to get out. After several back breaking days with a grubber, and then another very productive day with very welcome help from a couple of French wwoofers the garden was cleared. Then came the job of making up some garden beds. With the first one proudly made I rested my camera on the nearest post and set it on timer. Next came the potato patch, which does look rather bare, however now it is coming along rather well, photos of more garden progress will be posted later.

Kyoto & Nagano

After packing up my things I travelled over to Kyoto, and I have to say that out of all the cities I saw in Japan Kyoto has to be one of the prettiest cities along with Hiroshima. I visited a few temples while in Kyoto which were just amazing, especially the sand sculpture (see photo). I also had a spare bit of time while on my way back to catch my train and happened to be going past the Kyoto Zoo, so surprise surprise I went to check it out and boy was it a shock!!! The animals were in tiny little concrete blocks with no enrichment at all. I just could not believe my eyes. I did take some photos, but more as evidence of the crap conditions that they were kept in. I just felt so bad for the poor animals, and couldn't help them.

After Kyoto I took a long train ride up to Nagano where I went to visit the monkey part where the Japanese Macaques live and bathe in the natural onsens up there. My gosh I spent HOURS just watching them and also taking hundreds of photos. The little babies were funny to watch as well with all the mischeif they got up to, such as pushing each other into the water.

Nagano was a very pretty city/town and there was a festival up at the local temple. Unfortunately I missed the actual event however decorations were still up the next day so I was able to check them out.

Near Nagano was a small town that I travelled to with a Spanish couple from the States, and while there we visited some Japanese Onsens, the natural hot springs. The temperature that day I think was about 37 degrees and so going for a dip in a hot spring was very hard to do, however when we came out into the open again it was amazing how much more we could tolerate the heat and felt so refreshed. We also found a genuine little Japanese restaurant where we had a lovely Japanese meal, and even were able to order it in Japanese, although we had to as noone there spoke a word of english.

After Nagano it was another long train ride back to Osaka airport where I caught my flight back home to little old New Zealand.

Miyajima & Hiroshima

While staying in Fukuyama I travelled to Miyajima, an island near Hiroshima, which was very beautiful with loads of friendly deer roaming the streets and island. The deer were so friendly they would just walk straight up to you and steal your map from your hand in order to eat it. It was also quite entertaining to watch the deer hassle the people who were silly enough to feed the deer scraps of food. There was a large archway in the water, which at low tide was accessible, and was thought to be good luck if you were to touch it.

After Miyajima I travelled to Hiroshima and went to the peace memorial museum. Boy was it an emotional experience!! Learnt a lot from the audio tour as well.

My time at Miyajima and Hiroshima was very limited so did not get to see too much.

After this it was back to Fukuyama to pack for the rest of my travels around Japan.