Motueka - Nov 30 to Dec 7

After traveling up the west coast, we've been staying in Motueka which is a little town north of Nelson. We're WWOOFing with Maria and Gordon, a wonderful couple who have sheep, chooks (chickens), alpacas, cattle, and a nut orchard. The farm is only a 5 minute drive out of town, sort of a hobby farm that they're working to turn into a business. New Zealanders call these farms "life style farms" but Gordon says thiers is a work style farm since it is so much work. He actually runs an irrigation/equipment hire business and Maria does a lot of the farming.

When we arrived, Maria put us to work right away cracking nuts - macadama and hazel. I got a kick out of putting the nuts into the cracker which made a big "KE-CHUNK", shook the table it was bolted to, and spit out the cracked shell and meat. Sorting the shells from the nuts wasn't as much fun - much more manual. The next day was roasting the nuts at a kitchen in town and bagging them for the farmers market on Friday which we went to too. Different perspective than going as a shopper though.

Besides the nuts, we've also had the chance to do some wool processing. Megan is running the carder here while Maria looks on. It was interesting to start to learn about the different fibers and how to identify the guard hairs which are staighter and need to be removed.

Megan also did quite a bit of spinning and plying and received high compliments on her skills. She's been sort of the star WWOOFer, getting a lot of the processing done that Maria wanted to do but hasn't had time to do. I've been scooping up alpaca poo, spreading it in the garden, and driving the 4 wheeler around the farm. The work has been a little lighter than the last place we WWOOFed so we've almost been asking for things to do to feel like we're doing enough.

Maria has been great, taking us around and showing us things. On our trip out to pick up a new chook house, we stopped at Hallblacks. They sell wool yarn, knitting things, and spinning wheels which is what Megan was the most excited about. She tried a few out but the one she was the most interested in wasn't working quite right. So we left a request for them to keep an eye out for a used castle style spinning wheel which Megan things would be a great souvenir to bring back!

Another stop we made was at Rotocard which is a small scale carding business that is run out of a garage. They take fleeces, wash them, and card them for small orders which the big places wouldn't bother with. The photo below shows the carder running which was quite impressive. Just don't let your tie get sucked in!

The local A&P show (equivalent to a county fair back home) is this Sunday and Maria is actually the president. That is part of the reason she's been a bit distracted and really liked our ability to work on our own. They'll be bringing alpacas to the show along with some vintage engines which Gordon restores (he's got a whole double garage full of them!). Megan agreed to demonstrate spinning and weaving and just got the primer on weaving tonight. I'm looking forward to getting to watch the alpaca shearing - apparently they get put in a sandwich table, tipped on their side, have one half sheared, and then are flipped over for the other. A lot more complicated than the sheep shearing I've seen.

Gordon's garage of vintage engines (more behind me too!)

Monday we're off to hike the Able Tasman Coastal Track (north of Motueka) for a week so hopefully the weather will be beautiful and sunny for us. Our next destination will be Roxburgh which is at the southern end of the south island on Dec 15. We'll be WWOOFing there at Tally Ho Farm (www.tallyhowoolcarding.webs.com/) for at least a week.