Last Sunday Jeremiah went up to Kaikora with some guys to take a charter boat out for some sea fishing. There’s an incredibly deep ocean trench just a couple kilometers off the coast at Kaikora, so boats can go deep sea fishing without actually going that far out. Brrr, it was a brisk morning up there with new snow on the mountains. Winter is a-coming.

Most of these crayfish had to be dropped back into the ocean to grow some more, but each member of the party did get to keep one.

Fish, Milo says. Look at his mouth. Jeremiah brought back a “crayfish” (as they call these clawless lobsters here) and it fidgeted around in the pot trying to kick the lid off before we heartlessly steamed it alive. I remember Uncle Stewart bringing back lobsters to cook at Cape Cod when we were little. I remembered the horror of cooking the critters alive so vividly that I didn’t eat lobster until I visited Maine as a hard and calloused adult. Milo had absolutely no such qualms, and no sympathy for the live (or dead) lobster. I hope he turns out all right…..

The hubbies went out charter fishing and us wives had a left-behind-party with the kids. Really, just a trip to Willowbank nature preserve with a special coffee thrown in. Look at the long-suffering patience of those donkeys. The kids stuck flowers behind their ears, pulled their tails, petted their necks and squealed in their ears, but they never even flinched. it was impossible to get a photo with everyone looking, so we just settled for one with almost everyone present….including nine-year-old Joe whom I had to manhandle into the frame.

Look at this cool cat. The girls were getting decked out with marigolds behind their ears, so Milo wanted one too, then he sauntered around nonchalantly with his hands in his pockets, practicing looking hip.

Zealandia, what an outrageous name! That was my first impression of the big greenhouse wholesale business that now employs me.

Zealandia is a plant factory, complete with assembly lines (automatic tray filling and transplant lines), stacks of pallets filled with potting media and plastic pots, and and HR department.

At this point I should start philosophizing about not only the costs of parenthood, but also about the valuable lessons parenthood brings to our lives. The self-less caring for another’s needs, the constant practice at self-control, the minute-by-minute testing of patience….but those of you who know me well will know that’s not what was on my mind when my son demanded the last of the Lemon Yogurt. My Lemon Yogurt. The Lemon Yogurt that I bought as a special treat and have hardly tasted because Milo likes it too. You can see that nice bowl of blackberry yogurt I mixed up for him when we got home from our hike yesterday. He was having none of it.  Now I don’t think it’s a good idea to eat something in front of your kid and tell them they can’t have any (unless, of course, it’s dessert and they chose not to eat their dinner….), so what could I do?  I gave Milo a little dollup to keep him busy, then quickly finished the rest of the container so I wouldn’t have to share any more.  Good thing I hadn’t spent much time ruminating on the character improvements kids bring about in us, or I’d start worrying about my parenting skills!

The garden tomatoes have been both numerous and prosperous, so Milo and I made a batch of tomato soup. I miss my handy dandy Squeezo, but this squishing by hand method reminds me of making apple sauce with Mommom in her old-fashioned squeezo/strainer. And I’m sure Milo liked squishing the tomatoes with the potato masher more than he would have liked turning the crank on the Squeezo.

The constant and INSISTENT buzzing of flies is starting to wear on my nerves. They’re only house flies after all, not people-biting malaria-carrying menaces, but they should NOT be sharing my cooking space. I don’t know if it’s the fall season or the putrid chamois bones outside in our compost bin waiting for this week’s collection, but for some reason the flies have been particularly numerous in the last few days, DESPITE a closed window policy. Milo hunts them with relish, but he’s not been very successful with his dish cloth weaponry up to this point. So Mama slaps at them, Milo giggles, and fly guts get smooshed on windows and door jams. Yuck. Jeremiah says I’d never make it in a third world country, but I disagree. It’s different when you EXPECT major indoor insect life. I’ll never fathom why Kiwi homes don’t have window screening…it’s not a poor country after all.

The Crusaders are Canterbury’s Rugby team, not the National All Blacks team but still quite a serious league nonetheless. We got “take a kid to footy” tickets (good seats, plus a discount) to a game against South Africa last weekend. For Milo, one highlight was riding a BIG Red Bus to the game. Another was the mascot horses that cantered around the arena all in Crusaders Costume. The game itself was just background to the junk food he consumed.

Not only did we bring cookies to share around, but we got “take a kid to footy” goodie bags with potato chips and a chocolate bar. Milo was very serious about his chip consumption.

MMMmm, cookie!

Audrey was a pro at waving the flag, and took her duty as seriously as Milo took his chip and cookie eating. Audrey’s family left today to go back to Alaska. We’re looking forward to seeing them again in August, though when they return they’ll be living 5 hours away up in Nelson instead of the neighboring town.

These lazy lions hardly gave us the time of day, but they were lounging conveniently close to the fence to be great for observation. Talk about a freakishly large cat! A grizzly bear seems a much more “blunt” danger when compared to a cat. Cats just LOOK a lot smarter, like they might nonchalantly stalk you for pleasure, then toy with you as if you’re a mouse. Milo had absolutely no sense of fear with these guys though.

Jeremiah went hunting last weekend, so Milo and I met a friend at the Zoo, a “safari-style” walk through of mainly large African animals. Tristan and Milo are looking at the giraffes from afar, but earlier we had been quite close to them. With their wide heads atop long agile necks they reminded me of dinosaurs.

Wanaka is a cutesy little town on the edge of a big lake, very like Lake George Village. From Wanaka we drove about an hour to the end of a gravel road, past sheep and beef cattle and a surprising number of giant intact bulls roaming the road verges. They just stare impassively when you honk. We don’t see too many “intact” bulls at home, but the beef herds here are “serviced” by the real deal, so these lumbering giants with their massive necks and dangling masculinity on display aren’t too uncommon.

Milo is able to walk further and further by himself. The track to Aspiring Hut starts at the end of the gravel road and passes through gentle pastures with cows standing in the other-wise pristine blue glacial river.

We stayed two nights at Aspiring Hut, and old hut owned by a mountaineering club, but open to visitors (for a fee!) during the summer. Set at the edge of the beech forest overlooking expansive grassy meadows ringed with snow-topped mountains, it’s an impressive site. The beech forest stops quite suddenly at grass in the valley, though why is a mystery to me. Someone suggested that it had been cleared for pasture in the past.

All that grass made nice bug-stalking territory for Milo. To our astonishment, he actually caught a fly all by himself, and even zipped the door closed. He was so proud!

There was another family with young kids staying at the hut too, Israelis here on holiday. Ella, Milo and Sheera had a blast playing tag and bathing in the river. The hut has two separate bunk rooms, and the hut warden opened the smaller of the sleeping quarters for those of us with kids….ostensibly for our comfort, though we suspect more for the comfort of the other guests. Actually, there were 30 sixteen-year-old girls from a school PE class staying in the hut with us, so we were glad to be in separate sleeping quarters.

The second day we opted to climb to a saddle and return to the same hut to sleep, and this track was no gentle switch-backed incline. The wooded part is more like climbing in the Adirondacks, straight up the shortest route over roots and rocks. Our lunch spot gave this tantalizing view of the clearing peaks, and after lunch we hit the really steep part.

What a sight! Our hut was down in that grassy meadow way below. Yeah, and we’re only about half way up.

I think the glaciers make those fluffy clouds, they appear to be blowing off the mountain tops as they’re made. Steep as the track was, there were rewarding open views the whole way.

While we were hanging out at the top of this ridge we hear the glacier rumble. It sounded like an airplane but no aircraft was in sight, and it started and stopped pretty suddenly. One might compare it to lake ice creaking in a cold snap, except longer and more rumbley. Pretty cool.

Here we are turning to start the decent. Mama and Milo are singing “I got a new way to walk” by the Oinker Sisters (Sesame Street). It wasn’t until the next morning when we woke up with super sore quads that we fully appreciated to that decent, all 1300 meters of it. But it was worth it!

That tall peak in the distance is Mount Cook, the highest point in the Southern Alps. This is as close as we got for this vacation, snapping a photo on a high-way pull off. But we’ll come back some day.

The central Otago fruit and grape growing region, with Cromwell at the center, is between Queenstown and Wanaka. So why not spend half a day en route touring the wineries? That was my argument, and Jeremiah obliged. Besides wine grapes, Cromwell has a concentration of fruit orchards, though we didn’t see any genuine fruit anywhere near the size of those gracing the town welcome sign.

Our first winery stop was a classic tourist trap, but they had nice picnic tables for lunch alone side the buses full of Japanese visitors, so we stopped in to sample their products.

A “belt of viscosity” and “flecks of wet quartz”?!? Wine writers have seriously fanciful imaginations. Otago is known for white wines and pinots, and I guess I liked the wine description more than the actual wine…we have been spoiled by Mendoza, Argentina, having our favorite style of dry red wine in abundance (Malbec!) But it was still fun to taste, and at the smaller places, to talk to the owners about their grape growing practices. Vines are perched on various gravel terraces left by glacial outwash, bright green vines against the dry tan grasses of the craggy hills. Many of the orchards and vineyards are under netting to protect them from birds. Bird netting is so widely adopted that it makes me wonder why fruit growers at home don’t do it more, since they certainly complain vociferously about the damage caused by birds. I guess the dry climate in Otago makes for very few other diseases and insects to compete for the farm pest control budget, very unlike the humid northeast USA.

Jeremiah yawning over the wine tasting….it’s really not his thing, but he was a good sport about it anyway.

And Milo is happy trudging along at the wineries as long as he can play with the camera!

Perfect for Milo!