Our blind is a pallet-and-scrap-wood engineering marvel which we hope will snag us some mallards come duck season. You might wonder how we’ll ever retrieve said ducks from the middle of the lake (provided we actually make contact with our bullets). The “lake” might better be termed an overgrown “puddle,” 48,000 acres but not more than waist deep. It’s gradually filling in with river sediment and will some day make prime sheep pasture.

I was given a fish net from a mate at work that didn’t have a use for it anymore. I have tried using it before and caught a few sticks and seaweed, so Mark and I had very low expectations this time around. We happened to bring it along with us when we went out to work on our mai-mai (duck blind) which can be seen beyond, that incongruous “bush in the middle of the lake.” 

As the net is dragged along, the weighted bottom edge scrapes along the bottom of the lake, waking up the sleeping flounder and catching them in the net.

shhh-bam! Fish in the net! After dragging the net in 3 times, we had more fish than we knew what to do with, or more accurately we knew that cleaning all of them was going to be a BIG chore.

Here we are, two bald guys with an appetite.  We did cook them first. To be more accurate, three hours of hard work later we had honed our filleting skills to a T and had a bowl of paper-thin fillets (there’s not much flesh on a flounder this size) ready to pack in the freezer.

Jeremiah is a structural engineer, which mostly means sitting at a desk in front of a computer crunching numbers. The numbers turn into fancy stuff like rebar reinforcing, as pictured here, which no one ever sees because they get covered with concrete. And if the job is done right, the bridge holds up during the next earthquake.

Super duper high-vis orange! Health and safety has made inroads into NZ industries because the country has a lousy track record littered with worker accidents. The government is trying to shift the “she’ll be ‘right” attitude by plastering the workforce in neon orange and yellow. Jeremiah’s the closest orange worker, in a rare visit outside the confines of the office.

Molly works at a plant factory, 3 days a week. The floor space at this site is 20,000 square meters (200,000 sq ft) and the site is planned to triple to bring their other local greenhouses under the same roof. I wear high-vis too, but my yellow vest is tarnished with peat stains. Part of my job is soilless mix formulation and testing. “Making mudpies,” as my colleagues say.

When I’m not making mud pies, I’m staring at diseases. This one made the poppy go all nasty. Actually, it’s amazing the number of high quality plants the growing team churns out, the pretties just don’t make it onto my desk or into my photo gallery.

When I’m working, Milo is at a little Montessori preschool, where he has a good time playing with his buddy Cody. Naomi goes to Justine’s house, where she waves me off in the morning with a “Bbbeye” and a smile.

When I’m home with the kids we read….

We clean….

We cook…

We teach kind behavior (!)….

We go to the park…(Naomi tried hard to ride Milo’s bike)

We nap…with our toy guns?!

We use the toilet…

We grow garden veggies….

And we play peekaboo!

And sometimes “we” (that’s We in the royal sense) operate a miniature brewery out of our kitchen. Dubbed “Craggy Peaks Brewery,” the actual brewery fills our humble home in the Canterbury plains with hoppy steam.

Craggy Peaks has its own label, albeit a hand made one. In the next version I think the tahr should be waggling its tongue at the beer-slurping hunter.

Blueberries, now that’s a taste of summer! Milo thinks so too.

Have you ever read the book “blueberries for Sal?” The kid is eating blueberries out of her mom’s bucket so fast that her mom has to admonish her, tell her she has to pick her own. That’s how Naomi was on her first day blueberry picking. She got the hang of picking her own quickly!

I’m not saying that Northland isn’t beautiful. Kiwis were unanimous in their exclamations; “You’re going to the Bay of Islands? It’s so BEAUTiful up there!” And I’m not saying that we didn’t have fun. Warm(ish) water and sand are a kid’s delight. But check out at that rolling pasture with the holstein cows–it just looks like home. Not super exotic.

Giant Kauri trees, however, are an exotic perk of Northland. In a few preserved spots their barrel trunks still tower over the forest floor.

Aw, a good sibling moment in the Kauri forest.

We stayed at a Top 10 campground (in a hotel unit) in Russell, a little town which, back in the day, had a reputation as a rough port town replete with the amenities craved by sailors. Read prostitutes and alcohol. The catholic missionaries labeled it a Hell Hole, but the town has cleaned up their act since then, and it’s a pleasant little tourist trap now.

Bay if Islands boasts spear-fishing opportunities for Jeremiah, and he came back one afternoon with this goodly sized fish. The kids were more impressed with their candies from the “lolly scramble,” but they paused long enough to pose for a photo.

Milo was more pleased with this fish, a pouraia. Locals turn their noses up at them saying that they’re not good eating, but we couldn’t figure out what they’re talking about. I suspect they’re just easy to catch compared to snapper, so they are common enough to be snubbed.

We spent a day or two (the overcast ones) on short hikes, including this one down to the cove where there was an old whaling outpost.

Jeremiah played endless rounds of hide-and-seek along the trail with Milo. He might whine and want to be carried, but if you offer to race or to hide, he’s all game. They had the palm fronds to carry with them, making a mobile camouflage whenever necessary.

Our camera has a funny setting where we can turn off all the colors except blue. I wonder if there is some animal species that sees the world like this.

Pohutikawa is the New Zealand Christmas Tree, flowering red in the summer especially along the coast. We saw some good specimens down in the whaling cove.

On Christmas day we took a ferry out to Urupukapuka island for some clear fishing water and calm warm beaches. There aren’t any roads, but grassy trails through pasture and scrub connect the beaches.  If you didn’t look too closely at the flowering Manuka and Pohutukawa, you could imagine that this was an Adirondack scene.

This serious sand shovel was a Christmas present for Milo, and he’s proudly displaying his strength and prowess at hole-digging.

Naomi is BOLD in those waves. She runs right into the water, gasps a bit if it splashes high on her chest, and then comes back for more.

The kids’ pleasures are pretty simple, at this stage. They enjoyed the camp’s playground at least as much as the beach, and decidedly more than any scenic views. Naomi is a proficient climber, Milo bounced on those trampolines, and there was nearly always another kid or two hanging around for added interest.

When it comes to daring, there’s nothing lacking here! Naomi delights in climbing. Here she is dancing on the play table and squealing in the glory of having conquered the challenge. Milo, look out–you may be the biggest and fastest now, but your little sister will be constantly pushing into your wake.

“Faster, Ella!” The danger of falling doesn’t cross her mind, she’s just loving the speed.

Until recently Naomi was pretty good natured about having certain items taken away, but that complacency has abruptly ended. She had the white board marker yesterday (it stains!) and was making purple streaks on the carpet. She threw a noisy fit when it was confiscated, so I set her in her high chair with the washable markets and a piece of drawing paper. Boy, was she thrilled!  I’d still classify her as a happy baby, but she’ll also screech in protest when something doesn’t go her way.  Nothing lackadaisical here–she’s full of pep and shazam. 

It’s a long drive down from Richmond to Christchurch, and what better stopping point than Hanmer Springs, where entrepreneurial drive has turned the natural muddy sand-fly plagued hot springs into a kids’ watery paradise. To be honest, I’m not sure if these hot springs were originally muddy, but most don’t live up to the fairy-tale imagination of pristine steaming water flowing abundantly between rock-lined stream banks. We met Laura and her kids there for the day Saturday, and they returned with us for the weekend in Christchurch.

I’ve been to Hanmer Springs before but completely missed the spray park. There’s Milo, sluicing down the slide on the right.  When the cool wind got a bit brisk, we ducked back into the sheltered man-made stream, water a comfortable 35 degrees C (95 F). 

Naomi really wanted to climb up those steps, but spent a moment considering the sprinkle-fall obstacle first.

Always bold, she made a dash through the water but got stopped by the pelting drops, immobilized. Mommy to the rescue (after a pause to snap a photo first).  She conquered the steps and sloshed down the slide. 

The kids loved this Tuatara slide (a kind of pre-historic NZ lizard). You enter its mouth and come shooting out its tail–what more could a boy want? Noah had the best faces upon exiting!

There’s my beautiful baby!

Last week on a flight to Invercargill for work I found an ad in the in-flight magazine that made me chuckle. It’s so Kiwi. First off, the farms are profitable here, without any government subsidies either. Secondly, it’s persuasive in the casual understated humorous way of NZ advertisements. I’ve included their first 4 points because I thought they were so well written. Even positioned cheek by jowl with glamorous photos of exotic destinations and wine pairings, I might have gone for the farm investment…had I been flush with lots of extra cash and low on natural skepticism.

We go to the Ag Show every year, but this year looking at the photos what struck me most was the distillation of NZ culture. Not every aspect, mind you, but a couple strands of character than run deep in the fabric of society, such as sheep and sheep dogs. This could be a scene from the movie Babe. Sheep dogs may be super high energy, but in these trials they are amazingly disciplined, intense, and controlled. They stalk, they skulk, on occasion they sprint, but they are the model of controlled focus.

More Sheep! This time the race is to shave off their wool rather than move them through an obstacle course. It’s a two-part race, starting with the obvious bit of the sheering where the guys handle the sheep as if they were stuffed animals. Under expert hands they look docile (probably just hopeless), but once I saw a not-so-expert give it a go, and the sheep wasn’t so cooperative then. The second part is the wool handling–cleaning off the dingleberries (look that one up on google), separating the rest into grades, and bundling it all up to be baled. In the race we watched the shearers were neck-and-neck, and it was the speed of the wool handlers that separated the teams.

Lambs and sheep. The sheep maternity ward houses 50 ewes bred to give birth within the 3 day window of the show. The commentary from the women watching was all clucks of sympathy for the mama sheep, squirming embarrassment that she had to lamb in such a public arena, and pleas to help her as she strained to get the lamb out. I must admit I felt the same way.

Kids are allowed to touch animals here. Maybe I’m so impressed by this because the little county where we lived last (Tioga, NY) had a ridiculous rule about all animals being double-fenced to prevent contact with the public. These poor chicks were spending the first few days of their lives being passed from grubby little hand to grimy little fist, with perhaps a quick plunge to the floor in between. Milo admired the fluff ball for about 20 seconds, then abruptly opened his hands and dropped it on the floor. He was done with it.  He’s not long on sympathy, that one.

Doesn’t this horse and rider belong in Mary Poppins? For some reason horse fashion has gotten stuck in the early 1900s (correct me if I’m wrong, history buffs). There was even a class for side-saddle women riders, with their heavy full woolen skirts, and their faces tied up in black suet bags (must have been fly nets) underneath their brimmed hats.

Big tractors. That, at least, feels like home. Except that the owners of these expensive jobbers in NZ let kids climb up and stroke their big powerful wheels unattended. There must not be as many lawyers per capita here.

Only old people say “time flies,” right? I guess I’ve joined those ranks. Naomi is a year old now, and the time has flown.

To celebrate her birthday we spent the morning at Hagley park playground. Naomi is a bold climber. The fact that only big kids are using the high slide doesn’t phase her in the least.  She got up to that platform climbing the red grid below.

She’s happy going down sitting up or tummy down, but when I’m at the top I like to send her down on her tummy so I can see her grinning face and hear her giggly squeal.

There’s a photo of me, probably about the same age, climbing in the kitchen cupboard. She seems to find climbing irresistible.  Happy Birthday, you big girl!