Day 29: South of Takaka

We have lucked into a rather sweet deal.

As mentioned before, we are staying with Wendy and Carol.  In exchange for a few hours a day of work on their yard and garden, we get to live here:

This is the view from their yard.

And the work is easy, at worst. We start around 8:30 AM.  Typically, we're given maybe 2 tasks to do.  Weed a garden bed.  Run the mower.  Trim some hedges.  Each takes us only half an hour or so.

At 10AM sharp, we have tea.  Tea can last anywhere from half an hour to an hour, depending on how slow we drink our coffee and how good the conversation is.  We work for maybe an hour more (and never more than 3 horus total) and then we are free to do whatever we want.

Plus, I get to play with this guy:

And sometimes this guy, too:

It's strangely reminiscent of our WWOOFing in Portugal.

I've already cut and trimmed two dead trees, edged the entire yard, and dug up a couple of Barbary plants, a nasty, spiny hedge plant imported from England.  In England, they're managable hedges, but in NZ, they are a nasty, pokey pest.

Also, Wendy and Carol have a Grapefruit Tree.

They also have four orange trees, two fig trees, quite a few fijoas, some apples, some pears, a kiwi.  In other words, there is no lack of fruit here.  Which makes Molly very very happy.

I ran by the grocery store today, since we had volunteered to make dinner for Wendy after so many days of them cooking for us.  What did I find?

Justin, if you're reading the blog, good job getting some Brooklyn down here south of the Equator.  I haven't bought one yet, since you'll notice that the price is $3.99 a bottle.  Granted, that's only like $2.70 US, but I'll wait until I go back to New York and can drink it for free.

We did our typically dinner party trick, and made pizzas.

One semi-margharita style:  Last years basil, some tomatoes, and cheese.

The other an amalgam of mushrooms, onions, chard, green peppers and sauce that our ladies canned last year.

And the moon!  Tomorrow is the full moon, and Thanksgiving, too!  We have plans, don't you worry.

Not the best picture, but here is the porch where we have tea.  Their garden has the perfect combination of slightly wild and well thought out.

So like I said, pretty awesome deal for us.  And we like our hosts, and so far, they seem to like us.

So for now, we are saving a bunch of money, which after so much travel, saving money feels like making money.