Milo and Mama went on a walk on Friday to the old Halswell Quarry where much of the stone of the famous Christchurch buildings (fallen down since the 2011 quakes) was mined. The track wandered up through a sheep pasture where Milo got to practice his Bahhing. Not sure what his plan was for that stick, but at least it did not get near a sheep.

It’s school break (“holiday”) right now, so yesterday we went to Willowbank with our American friends that live in our neighborhood. Willowbank is like a nature preserve/petting zoo, and while you don’t actually pet the eels, the kids do feed them. They like minced meat, and they eat off spoons. Creepy!

“Willabie Wallaby Woo, and Elephant Sat on Sue!” That’s the Raffe song we enjoyed growing up. I didn’t know what a wallaby was, except for a nice rhyming word in a silly song. In real life they are just about as silly, sort of a cross between a giant squirrel and a kangaroo. The sign informed us that their babies live in their pouches for 5-11 months after they are born. Sounds like a massively stinky pouch to me!

Along with some New Zealand native animals and random neat exotic animals (lemurs, parrots, emus), one section of the preserve had farm animals. Milo got to practice his barnyard animal noises.

Milo was a bit tentative about touching the animals, but he knew just what to do with the tractor! Caty (holding Milo) is one of the American family who moved here less than a year ago.

Aw, the little guy is zonked out. That also meant Mama didn’t have to buy him ice cream like the other kids got (you can see Maggie with hers in the background).

“Gaw gow,” says Milo. Well, that’s what he said when I asked him what he wanted to say about his picture. We saved some big pieces of paper from our packing material and took a tip from Omi, strapping Milo into his high chair and taping the paper to the table to contain the scribbles to the page. It occupied him for, oh, about 5 minutes. The dirt pile out back holds more long term interest at this point.

Ooh, whose wrinkly old hands are those? Ah, never mind that, but what I meant to show was the crazy calendula seeds. Aren’t they fantastic? They look like caterpillars, maybe a dried-up version of a cut worm. I’ve never grown Calendula at home but it seems to do well here and come back year after year, so I got a seed packet and I’ll give it a burl.

This weekend we drove out through Sumner to Godley Beach, a walking area managed by the Christchurch City Council. Driving through Sumner was dramatic itself–it’s got to be one of the ritziest suburbs of the city, but it was hard hit with the earthquakes. Some sections of road are edged by shipping containers to protect traffic from rocks and houses falling off the cliffs. One place we looked up and the houses were half there, half gone. The rock the port hills are made of is rather porous, old volcanic material, and some of the best houses with the amazing views on cliff edges didn’t fare too well.

The trail was officially closed following the Feb 2011 earthquake (for fear of falling rocks), but we followed all the other footprints around the sign and enjoyed a section of the track. We’ll come back later in October when it’s open.

These lambs think that they’re goats, climbing around on the cliff edges. Milo, of course, was delighted to see them. He thinks all animals say “baahhh!,” and here in NZ he’s almost correct.

Yes, the boys look great, but take a look at that red flowering bush on their left. It’s a GERANIUM. I guess it never gets that cold right here next to the ocean, and they grow as perennials. I’m going to rush out Monday morning bright and early and buy myself some bright red ivy geraniums for my flower boxes!

Shaw’s don’t often wax poetic, but Jeremiah got pretty close while eating this quiche. This morning we went to the Christchurch farmers’ market and Jeremiah picked up a “second class dozen” (that means 10) duck eggs and Bobotie sausage (it’s green). This evening he whipped up a quiche that tasted great. Honestly I’m not a connoisseur of eggs, I couldn’t tell by taste that they were duck eggs. But we enjoyed them (and the food story) heartily at any rate!

I’m not sure who is enjoying Sesame Sreet on youtube more, Mama or Milo. Mama I think. We take full advantage of the addictive youtube feature where they suggest what other videos you might like….we’re on the Sesame Street song kick from the ’80s right now, clips I remember watching. “Du-op, du-op, Hop!” by Kermit is still running through my head.

When our shipment of household stuff arrived Milo got back a bunch of toys that we had packed away 10 weeks ago. Milo is a lot more dexterous now then he was just 2 months ago, but I wouldn’t have noticed the gradual development if I he hadn’t been without the blocks for so long. He’s good at stacking them now, building towers rather than just knocking them down. I kind-of got the grandparents’ view, when they say “My, how you’ve grown,” upon seeing the kids after an absence.

This past weekend we hiked around the Mt Somer area, up Woolshed creek to the DOC hut there. That means we didn’t have to carry a tent, and we had a heated place to cook! Molly carried Milo, his diapers and clothes, while Jeremiah carried all the rest of the paraphernalia.

I think these tussock grasses were native to the area, so I imagine that these hills were grassy instead of wooded before people came along. It’s kind of hard to imagine the natural look, actually, since just about every nook and cranny is changed to grazing land if it’s not so steep that sheep and topsoil fall off the slopes.

It’s a rather brown landscape right now, but I must remember that it’s still early spring. The tussock grass on the tops of those hills must get green at some point.

When we stopped for lunch Milo gets to stretch his legs, and eat the cheese off his sandwich. He likes Mama’s bagels when they’re fresh and soft, but rejects them later.

Starting in the mid 1800’s, miners tried to make a go at digging coal out of the earth. The mine is still there, closed off, and some of the steep tracks they made to carry the coal down to the train. Ug, what a cold, dirty, nasty way to make a living. For some reason, plants don’t seem to grow back around the mine site, so it’ll take a long time (in people time) for that scar to heal over on the landscape. I guess in geological time it’s still just a blip.

Check out those clouds! It’s cold when they cover the sun and warm when they pass.

There’s our hut, down in the valley next to the stream.

The “hut” is actually a pretty luxurious cabin with 26 bunks, a woodstove, and nice stainless steel counters for cooking. Here we are, ready to walk out after spending the night.

What you can’t see in this picture is the outhouse, but even that was well built and minimally smelly. You can hear the brook even inside the hut.

Milo seems to have remembered the hot wood stove at home, he respected this one well. “Hot” is one word he does say, and he used it well, making sure everyone knew that the stove was hot.

Peekaboo! The other campers were reasonably tolerant of Milo, but someone complained about the scampering feet in the morning when Milo and his 3-year-old new-found friend Sophie were playing chase.

Many trails don’t have bridges where they cross creeks, and Kiwis say they just walk though the water, shrugging off freezing wet feet as a fact of hiking life here. We’re not so convinced, and as pansy Americans we still adhere to the sacrament of dry boots while hiking. We LOVED this bridge, not only because it prevented wet feet, but because it WIGGLED.

“1 person maximum load.” Whoops, Milo and I exceeded that limit, but the bridge didn’t fall down.

This is a good time NOT to have a fear of heights!

There’s a little cave in the lee of a big rock along the path, and hikers have nicknamed it “The Bus Stop.” The weather can be pretty inhospitable here at times with wicked winds on the exposed south side of Mt Somers, so sometimes hikers park themselves here at the last shelter spot to wait out the weather. We had some chilly breezes, but nothing major.

The “Bus stop” even has a sign. But no bus, no tram, no train, no helicopter.

Here’s how we keep the little squirt warm when it’s windy–he gets covered in the pack cover! He has a little peep hole to see out of, but many times he just puts his head down and goes to sleep.

The soils up on these particular hills aren’t very fertile, with damp heavy clay soil, lacking nutrients. Mosses don’t seem to mind though! The lichens and mosses are most impressive, making their living where other plants can’t, at least not until their slow actions have helped weather the rock and improved the soil for other plants to get a toe-hold. I like them. They seem to be happy enough with the “make do with less” mentality.

The tree trunks are all black in the damp creek gullies. I think some sort of fungus is growing on the bark, making delicate little hyphae with bulbous water droplets. Need to learn more about that one….probably I’ll have to go back and ask old Tom Bombadil (Hugh, caretaker at Hinewai Reserve).

More scenery….we just can’t help ourselves. There were two guys at the hut who had carried in their skies, looking for a snowy slope to hike and ski down. They didn’t find any that were accessible from the hut, but we enjoyed talking to them anyway. Both are from Dunedin, south of Christchurch, and one invited Jeremiah to call him up when he wanted to go hunting down there.

Uncle Ted and Aunt Gretchen said when our shipment of household stuff came it would be like Christmas. They said you’d forget what you had packed and when you opened it up you’d have lots of pleasant surprises. At the time I thought “yeah, probably, if you’re old and forgetful and really into dishes.. I’m not.” But they were absolutely right. Maybe I am old and forgetful, and if not dishes, then I’m really into colorful throw rugs. We’ve been in New Zealand for 6 weeks now and it feels GREAT to eat at a dining room table and sit on a sofa. Our stuff took up 1/3 of this shipping container.

The carefully polite movers hauled everything inside, threaded the couch through the tiny living room door, and began assembling chairs, tables, and beds. All the hardware to put our bed together was missing, but at least Milo’s crib pieces came through alright. I offered the guys cookies for their break time and they didn’t know what I was talking about. Cookies are called ‘biscuits’ here, makes them sound a little healthier…or like a doggie treat.

Of all the nice little things that I unpacked today, my 10x hand lens tickled me the most. I completely forgot that I had packed it, and I had been wanting it too. It must have been an afterthought on the packing end, since it was tucked away in the kitchen box. Now I can see the fern sori (delicate little spore holders) close up! Oh my, I’m a hopeless nerd.

Bagels, a success! Milo thinks so too. Kiwis don’t seem to have fresh bakery bagels and Jeremiah likes them for breakfast, so I’ve been trying out recipes and techniques. These are the best so far. Dough sits in the fridge for a day, then bagels are formed, they rise, they’re boiled, then baked. Baked on parchment paper sprinkled with cornmeal, after the first batch I tried left all their bottoms on the pan. The mover didn’t know what bagels were.