A Farmers Wife and Life

Walk (or run) with me as I share our story.

Frayed Cobwebs July 16, 2012

Filed under: Farm,Scenery,Scott Brothers Dairy Farms — cntryrose @ 3:00 pm
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Like frayed cobwebs it moves across the land

Wiping out my view with its creeping gray hand

Cold and wet it slithers along so slow

Hiding the early hot summer suns glow

A damp cold beginning to my day as I walk with my dog

Pondering where it came from, this early morning summer fog

Is it something as simple as the weather, although it’s really odd

Or is it just simply the mighty hand of God?

 

(Getting) Older Bones Don’t Bounce! May 27, 2012

OUCH! I’ve been working on thinning out grasses and poppies, weeding and removing seedling trees in our “cactus” garden. This garden is a native garden and rarely needs attention. However, twice a year I need to thin out the Mexican Feather Grass and remove the California Poppies that have overgrown and gone to seed. I’ve been working diligently on this project the past three days during the cool of the morning.

Below are the “before” pictures of the garden area I have been working on. As you can see, it was a bit overgrown (to say the least!). But I just don’t have the heart to pull the poppies before they are done. They are so colorful, so bright early on in the spring when you are craving color after a drab fall and winter.

Poppies Gone Wild!

Today – I was digging up and or pulling up 4 foot “baby” Mesquite Trees. Five of them. On tree number 2 I gave a big tug after digging around its root system, its tap-root suddenly broke (DANG!) and down I went!!! Right onto a boulder… I landed on my right hip and my right elbow. OUCH!!! Besides my dignity being severely bruised I’ve also bruised my elbow, my hip and have a small cut on my knee (from the thorns on the tree which fell with me landing on me). However bad this was… I’m just forevermore grateful that I did not land on the cactus right behind the boulder! I’ll take a hard landing any day over a SHARP landing! LOL

The Rock!

The “Almost” Alternative

Rock and Cactus

And here are the “after” pictures… a much more presentable garden!

A Clean Walkway

All Done!

And the pile of pulled poppies and grasses… we’re going to spread them around some of the ponds and the dry riverbanks to see if they’ll grow there as well as they do in our garden.

Seeds and Mulch

I “was” going to paint our bathroom today, but I think I’ll leave climbing ladders for another day. A day in the near future when I’m not so sore, and not so stiff. For the rest of today… I’m going to go and curl up on the couch, knit or read, and keep taking something to keep the soreness at bay. Nope… (getting) older bones just don’t bounce like they used to! :-/

 

Time to Go Home May 7, 2012

As it always happens, time marches on and we find ourselves enjoying our last day of New Zealand in Queenstown. In the afternoon we will board a jet to fly up out of this beautiful mountain town to Auckland where we will board a bigger jet to fly back to Los Angeles where our little “family” will split up and head our separate ways, back into the “real” world.

Queenstown is a very picturesque town, nestled in between mountains and resting alongside a gorgeous lake. The evening that we arrived we were treated to a stunning sunset.

The View From Our Hotel Room

Looking out our room window the other direction.

The sunset that evening develops into stunning colors all around us.


It may be summer, but there was snow on the mountains when we woke up.

The morning of the day we are to leave we wake up, in the middle of summer remember, with SNOW on the mountain tops! 

And while the locals, and some tourists too I suppose who were caught unaware, are walking about in sandals and shorts… we bundled up to walk down by the lake and enjoy our last few hours of New Zealand.

Bruce enjoying a very tasty pot pie.

Reflecting back on our various stops during this trip we sat by a crackling fire in one of the local pubs and enjoyed a warm pot pie meal together. 

Bruce & I both feel so blessed to have been able to take this trip, and doubly blessed to have the wonderful traveling companions that we found ourselves sharing those two weeks with.

Our group, plus the owner of the sheep station we were visiting.

But that’s part of farming I believe, there is so much camaraderie whenever a group of farmers get together. It’s always just been a wholesome fun time when I’ve been with any group of farmers, whether for business or for pleasure and this trip was a prime example of that.

Our trip to New Zealand was exhilarating, and gave us a look at a country that both Bruce & I came to love and hope to visit again. We have memories of the steadfastness of the Christchurch people rebuilding their town building by building, of the beautiful aqua colored lakes of the South Island, of the Maori and their traditions that live on so richly today, of various farms that we’ve seen; cattle, sheep, kiwi’s, grapes, deer and forage crops. Then there are always the people… friendly, outgoing and curious as to what our lives are like. And you know what… we’re all pretty much the same, they just speak funny! LOL Actually I like the way the Kiwi’s speak, but I just can’t figure out why they could always know we were from America because of our “accent”!

Looking down upon Queenstown from the Skyline Restaurant after riding a gondola up the mountain.

Walking alongside Lake Wakatipu in Queenstown New Zealand

 

The Milford Sound April 6, 2012

Beauty… what does “beauty” mean to you? I think it comes in many ways… a new-born baby, a pretty face, a sunset that just takes your breath away, or maybe the first time you gaze down into the Grand Canyon or look HIGH up into the tops of the tall, tall redwoods of the northwestern coastline.

Beauty… we saw a lot of it in New Zealand.

Then we saw the Milford Sound.

It is beyond my meager words to describe what we saw. Picturesque. Stunning. Beautiful. Huge. Serene. Vertical.

It was a warm dry day when our group went out on our ship The Milford Wanderer to see the Sound. And although we were told that during a rainy day there were hundreds of waterfalls, we were glad it was bright blue skies and didn’t miss the waterfalls that “weren’t there” as there were plenty that were there. Glistening, dropping, flirting with the wind, falling water almost everywhere we gazed.

The wind was brisk and cold once we were out upon the water, but that didn’t send us downstairs into the warmth of the cabin. No, we stayed on the deck where we watched the scenery as it went by, and where we tried hard to impress the beauty of the surroundings into our memories to last a lifetime.

The Milford Sound is an incredibly beautiful fjord. Located on the southern west end of the South Island it leads out to the Tasman Sea and on your journey you will marvel at the straight up cliffs, the water cascading down the crevasses and enjoy the occasional seal sunning on rocks. If you are very lucky, we weren’t, you’ll see a whale, dolphin or penguin. But, none-the-less, whether we did or didn’t see some of the aquatic wildlife on our trip what we did see was….. beautiful.

Beauty

 

Te Anau March 10, 2012

Another of my favorite areas of New Zealand is the town of Te Anau which sits along the eastern shore of Lake Te Anau. Te Anau is internationally known as the “Sightseeing Walking Capital of the World” as it is located near the main southern walking tracks of New Zealand. We stayed here for two nights and enjoyed seeing the sites of this picturesque town. While out exploring the area we came across several “different” modes of transportation. And although we did not partake in these particular three I thought it would be fun to share pictures of them with you.

This first picture is of a motorhome, we did not see many motorhomes in New Zealand, in fact we saw very few of them; and most that we did see were smaller, trimmer models. This is the largest of the ones seen, and we have to wonder also if it were “homemade”.

Homemade? We honestly do not know... but it definitely was unique!

Sea planes are not that unusual… unless you come from the desert area of So. Cali! Yes, we’ve seen them before… on TV or in movies. But for both Bruce & I this seaplane was honestly the first we’d seen “in real life” and it was really rather beautiful as it flew by us.

Yes, it's a plane... but for So. Cali. high desert folks it was unusual to see a "sea plane" and therefore worthy of a picture. :)

And then there was this contraption… as you can see Bruce was fascinated by it, and studied it for quite some time. Both of us agreed that we would not want to be the guy going backwards, trusting our fate to the driver. But we also both agreed that if we’d been able to gather up our other tour participants this would have been fun to try! :) Unfortunately we had all scattered for the day, going different directions in doing exploring on our own.

Now this one... it's odd! A bicycle built for SEVEN!

While in Te Anau we partook of two lake adventures. Our first, a boat trip on Lake Te Anau to the Glow Worm Caves… and then the following day we’re off to see the Milford Sound. Stay tuned… both deserve their own posting and pictures… and those will be forthcoming soon.

 

Age, Experience & Wisdom

Filed under: Bruce,Family,Flowers,Garden,Nanette,Scenery — cntryrose @ 4:56 pm
Tags: , , ,

With age comes experience and with experience comes wisdom ~ right?

Well one would hope that with age comes experience and then along comes wisdom with that experience. So that’s why I can say… from experience and from wisdom of a job done… that yes, I LOVE my new gazebo, and yes, it was fairly easy to put together, in fact it took us about 3-1/2 hours  from start to finish.

However, if anyone ever asks me to help them put their new gazebo together, because yes, I am experienced… but from that experienced wisdom I will wish them well and promise to them that’s it’s fairly easy and goes pretty quickly. However, I won’t mention to them the aching arms, the oh so sore back and yes, even my leg muscles which are screaming from climbing up and down the ladder many, many times; all of these “fun” experiences from this adventure today. Nor will I mention to them the broken fingernails, nor the sweat that starts running down your face and other body parts… but I will tell them how awesome it is to sit under your gazebo after construction is done, and how much we are looking forward to enjoying “fly/mosquito free” dinners out-of-doors and I will also wish  anyone well on their adventure to come… when they put their own gazebo up… without me! ;-)

 

Clinton, Gore, Cows & Sheep March 8, 2012

Filed under: New Zealand,Scenery,Travel — cntryrose @ 10:17 am
Tags: , , , , , ,

Now what, you may ask, does Clinton, Gore, Cows & Sheep have to do with anything in the same description? Well, we’re on our way to Te Anau on the western side of New Zealand’s South Island after spending the night in Dunedin (pronounced “Do-NEE-din). As we travel we will pass through Clinton, and then stop for just a bit in Gore; and as we travel along the scenery is now mostly composed of rolling hills with paddocks where we see lots and lots of dairy cows and then as we climb higher into the mountains we begin to see more and more sheep!


We stopped for lunch in Gore… at The Moth, a wonderful restaurant with many delicious choices. Shown below is my selection for lunch and it is not only “pretty” it is incredibly tasty! A red onion, goat’s cheese and fig tart, served alongside a balsamic salad which more than met my expectations. It was Oh. So. Very. YUMMY!

While we did not have time this day to walk about the vintage aircraft museum that “The Moth” is named for and adjacent too, we did enjoy the antique wooden airplane propellers hanging on the walls of the restaurant which were reminiscent of times gone by. And as always, we enjoyed each others company as we discussed what we’d seen this day on our trip.

Leaving The Moth we head ever westward towards the Southern Alps, Fiords and Sounds that we will finish up our trip with. The weather stays warm, although a bit brisk in the shade and we see a decidedly increase of sheep grazing in the paddocks and fewer cattle – evidence that we are climbing higher into the mountains and more into “cold” country where sheep excel.

 

Mother Nature’s Soccer Balls March 6, 2012

Mother Nature’s Soccer Balls? Well… they look like they could have been soccer balls!

One of the more unusual sights that we enjoyed on our trip was the Moeraki Boulders. Strewn upon Koekohe Beach south of Oamaru on New Zealand’s Otago Coastline they look as if Mother Nature grew tired of playing soccer. The boulders draw crowds that climb upon them, gaze upon and wonder about just “how” these spherical stones came to be.

These large stone spheres are approximately 60 million years old and were formed in ancient sea sediments by a process known as concretion and are made of mud, fine silt and clay, which is cemented by calcite. In more recent time the stones are now being exposed due to erosion of the shoreline cliffs along the coast. Several of these stones can boast that they weigh up to several tons and have a diameter of 7 feet.

A Maori legend tells that the stones are made from the remains of various baskets washed upon the shore after the canoe Araiteuru became wrecked at nearby Shag Point.

For more information on these fascinating works of Mother Nature please see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moeraki_Boulders

 

Lets Enjoy Some Agricultural Scenery March 4, 2012

As we were driving to our next stop, the Moeraki Boulders in Central Otago we drove through some outstanding agricultural scenery… so green, so beautiful and so vast!

 

Relaxing In Oamaru

Filed under: Flowers,New Zealand,Scenery,Travel — cntryrose @ 8:58 am
Tags: , , , ,

After touring Oamaru with Jock Webster we traveled to his home to enjoy a wonderful bar-b-que out-of-doors in he and his wife Helen’s delightful front yard. What a beautiful oasis they have created among the trees, grasses and fields.

I was enchanted with the birds that Helen made and placed in her garden, ,made of wrapped wire they were a graceful addition to their beautiful yard. And yes, I will admit, a twinge of jealousy for her beautiful hot house and the scrumptious tomatoes we enjoyed that she had grown there. No matter where we wandered that day, inside their beautifully restored “old” home or throughout their gardens we were met with pockets and vast expanses of beauty. Truly a home to relax in and we felt as welcomed as longtime friends would be, both Bruce & I will always have fond memories of our hours spent with Jock & Helen.

 

 
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.