WW161 & 162 Sarah and Tom

Sarah and Tom stayed two weeks and there were more pears and apples to pick and bottle and they helped us with a lot painting of a little cottage we just bought in Timaru a 5 minute walk from Rusty's work. This is a long term anti-commute plan for when the girls have left school! Having Tom and Sarah help with the painting made the work go along so much quicker, which was just as well as the weather was getting more autumnal. They also helped with a compost project and laying out some paper in gardens as a weed deterrant.

Sarah got a new hairdo. I tried to make her look like a photo she had on the laptop (not bad results) and Tom played Chinese Checkers with Wal.

Sarah learnt to make soap and yoghurt and loved the nail gun...sounds dangerous!

WW159 & 160 Susan & Julia

Susan and Julia are now prepared to become "proper housewives" after a full course in making jam and bottling pears and cooking from the garden. The also learned from Shannah how essential tomato sauce is to the fkavour of a well tasting dinner!

Susan and Julia stayed nearly 3 weeks so they felt like part of the family and of course Jess enjoyed their company too- more ball throwingpower around the place!

Susan and Julia wrote out a sudoku for Wal for homework-( PS it is finished.)
and for the girls and I we got a recipe for "Schweineohnchen" which we have yet to try.

WW157 & 158 Alan (R) and Sarah

Alan has emigrated to NZ after his time wwoofing with Sarah and we had kept in touch-it was great to have Alan come back and visit (see post for Alan in May 2007)Alan helped us make some doors etc and the house was still very much a building project. Here's what Alan has to say....

"What a pleasure to come back and see the house all finished and everyone moved in. Can't believe the progress after 3 years-it still doesn't feel like I'v been gone very long. Can't believe how beautiful and colourful the house is, and the garden is amazing already and I am very envious and hope to come back again soon."

And we would love to see Alan and Sarah and, indeed, any past wwoofer. It is a real joy to have people come back. It's almost like family turning up. You're always welcome.

WW156 + 2 Sophia, Melvin & Catherine

Sofia brought her two children from Taiwan to stay with us for 10 days during their winter holiday. The children had a great time playing on the trampoline and went camping in our new tent on the front lawn. Sofia made newspaper logs, made some fences with Melvin's help, palnted a small garden with their own plants, made some jam (actually 100 JARS OF JAM), went out for BBQs and Melvin enjoyed playing with Thomas, one of Ami's friend's brothers.

Sofia and the children fitted in wonderfully and it was great to share the last of the summer holidays with them.

WW154 & 155 Silvio and Lorenzo Christmas 2009

Silvio and Lorenzo are our first Italian wwoofers and we loved having them. They stayed 11 days through the Christmas period and then returned for 4 days after New Year. They were great at helping out in the kitchen, pavlova of course was on the Christmas menu so we needed the boys' muscles to whip the meringue. Rusty and Silvio had several international matches at table tennis. We have just started to use Matt's table for games. Skinny but a good length. I won't announce the scores becasue it was embarrassing for Italy! Come and try again, Silvio!

(Lorenzo-I need a photo of you!)

WW152 & 153 Jennie and Andy

Jennie and Andy arrived late on Christmas Day and stayed for dinner. In the morning they helped out with a couple of small projects. We finished the Oamaru stone fence and used the leftovers to make a border for the front of Shannah's garden as well as suppressing the weeds using flattened cardboard boxes.

Jennie and Andy are friends with Matt and Carrie and though it was brief we enjoyed the opportunity to connect with friends of friends. Thanks for coming.

Merry Christmas to all wwoofers

Thank you to you all where-ever you are for Christmas. As a token of appreciation we donated gifts to charities overseas. We hope that all our wwoofers and recipients of the gifts also will be blessed at Chritsmas and in the coming year. If you are able please drop us a line (send a short email) we do like to know what you are doing!

WW150 & 151 Harmony & Nicolas

Harmony and Nicolas helped Wal build a rabbit hutch as the girls were to get rabbits for Christsmas. Unfortunately they felt pressured by circumstances beyond our control and needed to move on and find work. A word of warning-it is a huge risk to buy a car which has not been vetted (checked) Join the NZ Automobile Association and get your vehicle checked by a certified mechanic before you buy. Especially if you are spending more than $2,000.

WW148, 149 and 2 halves

Adar and Anna from Israel came with their two children Aya and Ellie. Aya and Shannah got on really well and Ellie enchanted us with her bright smile. We enjoyed lots of family time together including attending the Christmas pageant at church and a picnic at the park. Adar put in a few poles so I could make some ornamental fences to set off the gardens down the drive. Anna and I started an Oamaru stone garden and weeded Nao's garden.

WW145-147 Khang, Teh and Joey

Khang, Teh and Joey are our first wwoofers from Malaysia. We enjoyed learning a bit about Malaysia and they learnt from Shannah that Malaysia has the sun bears. Wal and the three made a new garden which is now flourishing with broccoli and courgettes.

WW144 Maria 2009 14 November

Maria was a well seasoned traveller from Canada. We enjoyed listening to her stories of various trips. Maria is a more "experienced" traveller than most we host so did fairly light duties like cleaning. She cooked us a wonderful Chinese meal one night enjoyed by all. The weather must havebeen cold again because Maria enjoyed the cosy comfort of the wood stove in the evening and the delicious smells of the baking.

WW141-143 Hendrik, Cathleen, Andreas

Hendrik, Cathleen and Andreas helped out quite a bit with the garden during the week they were with us and one of the boys cut up a bit of firewood. Just as well, the summer has been so sappalling we are still lighting the fire regularly. Ami learnt how to make a pavlova at school so we had one one night- we all take turns using the handbeater to get it whipped stiff enough.

WW140 Sarah 24 Oct 2009

Sarah worked for a few days and learnt how to make a "Taranaki gate". She then helped us out by staying and looking after the house while we went away. She writes of this time in the scrapbook " it caught fire twice, I broke the cable for the phone and the internet and Jess unfortunately ran away cause I didn't feed her and left the gate open.......just joking"

She also wrote a funny German poem in the book

Dark was it, the moon was shining bright,
whena flash-fast car was driving around the corner,
when a rabbit, shot dead, was iceskating on a sandbank,
And a curly haired blonde boy with deep black hair was sitting on a blue chest, which was painted in red.

WW139 Nao

Nao came back to visit us AGAIN (third time) and it was wonderful-now we are waiting for the 4th time????????? Nao might have weeded the garden she made the time before. Now it has a fence and windbreak around the rabbits aren't getting in. The grasses have really come away this spring. In autumn I will split them and double the number.

WW138 Shani 2009 20 Sep-9 October

Shani stayed for 10 lovely days and helped out with a variety of jobs-probably including weeding ( we have lost our wwoofer log so things are a bit hazy-and we lost our camera so hlease send us a photo.)

WW137 Eve 21 September 2009

Eve (wwoofer number 137) is our second wwoofer for our 5th wwoofer hosting year and shared some of her time with Shani. And surprise, she is from New Zealand. I mistakenly assumed she was from the States, until I found out after three days she was from NZ. Our 5th only wwoofer from New Zealand. Eve fitted in just like a big sister- we just had so much fun- can't really remember what Eve did but we had a good time. Eve drew the first entry in our new scrapbook and made a great job of it drawing the family, 1sheep, 2 goats and Jess the dog all in silhouette. ( and Eve-if you read this please send us a photo- we had lost our camera while you were here.)

WWOOFING 2008/09

Our 4th woofing year started with wwoofer number 80, Kristen on the 5 September 2008.

Pauline was our last wwoofer (WW136) for the 2008/2009 summer season concluding on 28 August 2009.

We had wwoofers this season from the U.S., Hungary, Japan, U.K., Germany, Canada, France, Malaysia, Israel and Mexico.

All in all we had 56 wwoofers stay in 2008/2009. We are grateful for everybody's assistance and certainly enjoy the multinational multilingual exposure to a variety of people. Thanks for coming to see us.

Jordan & Joya 12-21/8/2009

We loved having Jordan and JOya, two sisters from California. At nights they played Chinese checkers & solitaire, read magic pony books to the girls AND finished a 1000 piece puzzle we had started which was really challenging.

They helped dig a trech for the fence to fence off the greywater system and then we covered all that ground under the pear tree with carpet. Wal took them to help out with some volunteer work at Bushtown and they completed the shade house. They dug the turnip bed, helped Rusty lay some edging down the drive and put up an electric fence in the paddock.

Nicolas & Pauline 24-28/8/2009

Nicolas and Pauline did some more firewood, weeding, helped Wal construct the pumpkin patch, planted seeds, transplanted a couple of trees, tidied up the garage and made French crepes.

Nicole & Christopher 5-7/8/2009

Nicole and Christopher helped to put a collar on the goats- catching them probably took awhile. They also helped to cut some wood. We have had some free firewood lately so we are nearly a couple of years ahead, which means our wood will be nice and dry and burn cleanly.

Natsumi 20/7-5/8/2009

Natsumi helped with a variety of jobs from weeding, shoveling, planting onion seeds, carrying firewood and housework.

Dave & Nieves 26-30/6/2009

Dave and Nieves have both been all over the place so we enjoyed the stories of their travels. Of course, they helped with the vegetable plot, fencing, cleaning the old house and pushing the car in the muddy paddock.

Liz & Emily 24/5-3/6/2009

Liz and Emily were here for part of the time Shauna was and helped to do the Earthwood mosaic filling in a gap in the floor between the hall and the kitchen. Wal and Shannah had been stubbing their toes for the best part of a year so it was a great project to finish. On the arty craft side of things they helped make Rusty's pukeko costume for the Waimate Wearable Arts and Liz ended up being the model as Rusty was really sick. The costume won a special prize for the amount of work which had gone into it.

Liz and Emily dug fenceposts, turned the compost and helped with the kitchen cupboards. Not exactly sure what Emily did with the knife??????

Shauna 19/5-3/6 & 1-22/7/2009

We really enjoyed Shauna's time with us and invited her back to look after the house and the dog and the sheep and the goats etc..

During Shauna's first visit she helped with concreting and digging and construction of garden beds and did the Earthwood mosaic with Liz and Emily. She helped sow some seeds, weeding and put the kitchen doors back up in the old house.

On her second visit while we were away it was too wet and too cold to do anything much at all except keep the house warm, but Shauna cut a huge stack of kindling wood, which has made the firelighting easier for a few months!

Shauna was here for Ami's birthday and a potluck tea, and taught us how to knit flowers.

Katrin 3-5/5/2009

Katrin helped out at the old house with some sanding and painting of cupboard doors.

Katie 28 April-2 May 2009

A very short visit by Katie as she found herself a job and had to start immediately.

Lauritz

Lauritz helped out with some weeding, cutting firewood, and enjoyed the atmosphere of the house. He also ran around entertaining the dog, Jess!

Family time April 2009

We had the delight to host our second family, this time a family of 5 from Israel. Elad and Anat with children Oria, Maayan and Michael.

Oria was very close to Shannah's age and they got on quite well. Although the children didn't speak a lot English they could understand a bit and Rusty learnt a bit of Hebrew.

Elad and Anat helped plant some trees, more concrete around the raised beds-to-be, laying out some carpet and lots of picking up gorse as we just had about 100 metres of gorse ripped out with a digger. They put a new mud layer on the pizza oven-adding a door, and added some soil and planted the back garden.

Naoko 10 March-5 April & 23 June-4 July 2009

Naoko wrote "Painting the kitchen wall (nice!), making peach jam (bloody awesome!!) and gardening (great!). Naoko worked on the new garden on the east side of the house to fill in a corner between the house and the drive. We have put grasses around the edge and a low spreading plant in the middle. Unfortunately, the rabbits have found that one a bit tasty.

Good to see Naoko picked up a bit of Kiwi lingo! We really enjoyed having Naoko here and, in fact, we got tho enjoy her company for a second visit. Naoko scored an "R" for being a
"R"-eturnee wwoofer.

On Nao's second visit she did some planting, finished the garden, which is called Nao's corner, vacuumed the carpet and did some cleaning in the old house.

Markus WW116 26-31/3/2009

Markus helped to lay some bricks and do some concreting- the edges around the grave plots!! Wal had macrocarpa sleepers cut to sit on the concrete berms to make the raised gardens.

Zach & Melissa WW114/115 24-27/3/2009

Zach and Melissa are friends with Matt and Carrie, (woofers 9 & 10)-it was great they could squeeze in a visit to us. They helped us make a start on our vegetable garden. The first step was to dig some rectangular patches out of the turf. It looked like we were going to start a cemetary!

Melissa was heading straight back to Matt and Carrie's wedding when she left so we prevailed on her to take the wedding present...Thanks Melissa.

Steffen WW113 12-21/3/09

Steffen's visit overlapped with Rebecca's so he picked apples and peaches for jam, helped to paint the old kitchen and make new cupboards and the kitchen bench.

Steffan and Nao came with the girls and I to the Waihao Box for a picnic. It was bitterly cold so it was a short one!

Rebecca WW112 5-14/2/09

Rebecca was here for most of the same time as Jocelyn and Annie, so she did lots of peelig, chopping, boiling and bottling of pears as well as making tomato chutney. We needed to redo the kitchen in the old house so Rebecca helped Wal gut the old kitchen, washed the windows and fixed some of the willow baskets.

Jocelyn & Annie WW109/110 3-8/2/09

Jocelyn and Annie helped out with the preserving. Our beautiful 6 metre pear tree was loaded so they picked, peeled and preserved pears. They also cleaned down the old house, took the tomatoes out of the garden, turned the compost and put down Astro-Turf for weed control.

Derren WW108 22-28/2/09

We had a bit of rain come in the roof with the wind blowing from an unusual direction. Derren helped to fix the roof, did some concreting work, bottled apples and cleaned the wwoofer accommodation.

Soo WW107 8-16/2/09

Soo was our first wwoofer from Malaysia. He helped with weeding and fencing and picked plums to make jam. Soo is pictured making the calendar envelopes with Stefanie and Jessica.

Stefanie & Jessica WW105/106 4-11/2/09

Stephanie and Jessica kindly housesat for us looking after Jess, the dog, etc while we went away for Waitangi weekend. They did some weeding and housework to help out, too.

We enjoyed making some envelopes out of calendars with Ami and Shannah and got a couple of crazy puzzles done.

Alyssa & Stephen WW103/104 2-5/ 1/09

Alyssa and Stephen helped do some fencing and built a cabinet. This cabinat is extra space for preserves and jams.

Simon & Viktor & Niels WW100/101/102 30/1-2/2/09

Simon ,Viktor and Niels were here for the same period as Mike.

Simon and Viktor helped Wal fence the front paddock and to the west of the house. They tidied the last of the wood in the back paddock from when the house was built, cutting and stacking it and putting the last pieces into a bonfire stack.

Niels helped Rusty clear some brush away from the neighbour's fence, tidied the tyres, grubbed out some dock from the paddocks and helped Rusty make a carpool hut at the road end of the drive. Mind you, I don't get to use it very often as I am always running late and the car is usually there already!

Mike WW99 30/1-2/2/09

We need to protect the prchard trees from the sheep so Mike helped to build some protectors for around the trees and moved the watering trough.

Martina WW98 27-28/1/09

Unfortunately, Martina could only stay a day, but she helped pick apricots and apples and cleared a space for the worm farm. Wal has made a dedicated worm farm to receive the compost from the toilet.

Jessica WW97 23-26/1/09

In the notebook Jessica didn't list what she did but wrote 'Thank you for sharing your knowledge and fresh bread"...so I guess she ate lots of bread while she was here!

David WW96 6-9/1/09

David came to join up with his friends David and Stefan. He was cycling so he came a bit later than them. He left in such a hurry he left a nice New Zealand cap behind, which Haldor inherited gratefully.

Haldor and Catherine WW93/94 5-15/1/09

Haldor and Catherine stayed 10 days and quickly became part of the family. Both had a lovely sense of humour and we enjpyed their stay. Haldor was instrumental in helping to set up the solar power as he was an electrician and he helped wire in the battery bank. Solar power at last! Since then we have added two more batteries for a little extra storage capacity.

Catherine did lots of painting, painting, painting....gardenig and weeding. She also played lots with Ami and Shannah and fell in love with the sheep! Catherine is pictured with her 2008 edition of the essential Kiwi souvenir, an Edmonds cookbook, and Rusty has her 1951 version
!
This was their first WWOOF in New Zealand, but they had wwoofed in South America which was really interesting to hear about.

David and Stefan WW92/93 2-9/1/09

David and Stefan helped clean the windows, did some digging, fencing and concreting. The most fun was building a hut for Shannah under the pear tree and making a tree hut for Ami.

They borrowed Wal's fishing rod and went down to the river mouth with a bit of luck on one night. The next night they got rather tangled in the bushes.

Ken for Christmas WW91 21-29/1/09

Ken stayed for a week over Christmas 2008. We had a quiet time with my parents also visiting for a couple of days. Ken wrote he learned about how to be more patient and about commitment to family. Ken helped us screen lots of soil for the garden and did a bit of weeding around trees to help them grow. We were really impressed with Ken's effort to cycle around New Zealand ! On Boxing Day we went to the Waimate Rodeo and enjoyed the show.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS 2008

MERRY CHRISTMAS

AND

A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

To each and every wwoofer, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your special contribution to building our house and establishing our property and we wish you all the best for Christmas and for the coming year.

For Christmas this year we have given Childfund a donation of $92 ($1 for every wwoofer we have ever had) to go towards their African appeal. At Christmas as we enjoy our lives of privilege we remember with charity those less fortunate. In the coming year I hope we can remember the people whose lives will be impacted by climate change by our actions and our words and our political will to make a difference.

FLORIAN

Florian probably has an identity crisis now because I kept calling him Fabian or Damian... Florian had a relaxing (boring?) couple of days minding the house, while we went up to Wellington. It poured with rain and he couldn't do anything except sit inside. Florian and Ken came to "Christmas in the square". We took a picnic of curry and rice and enjoyed the entertainment. Florian starred as a king in the play, and Ken as an angel. They had some lucky prizes and Florian won a nice shirt for being one of those coming from the furtherest away. Florian helped with fencing and "killing weeds" as well. He got on really well with the girls and got on Shannah's bad side by stealing her chocolate cake mix from the bowl! At night he challenged Wal to Chinese checkers...and he won tonight, on his last night!!!!

Narumi and Kyooko

Narumi and Kyooko walked the girls to school one morning as Wal drove over to Wanaka to get a 2nd hand fridge. It is a GRAM model and is the most energy effcient model on the market (I think). It is highly insulated and is probably the model of choice for people off the grid. They did a bit of housecleaning and taped down the sides of the fusuma paper on the doors as it was peeling on the edges. Narumi and Kyooko got the cold weather following the heat wave...nevertheless, they got a phone call from a friend about cherry picking and they were off despite the cold.

Claire and Sophie

We had a heat wave while Claire and Sophie were here so they spent most of their time in the shade weeding under the trees. Ami brought home a book on gingerbread houses and the great gingerbread project was begun. This engaged Claire, Sophie, Shannah and Ami for several days and the picture speaks a thousand words...fantastic!

Sho

Sho was a bright and cheerful Japanese with engaging conversation. He weeded, dug out the trench at the back of the house, generally helped tidy up, collected various things like carpet, sawdust and drums, and helped sieve last years compost and make a new compost heap.

(Sho at the bench)

Megumi

Megumi's stay is a blank...?? (she forgot to write in the book) but she weeded the drive garden for me and weeded and covered the gardens at the road end of the drive with bright, orange carpet (since covered with sawdust). Megumi did some calligraphy and we get a lot of people asking what it means. We have hung one on the wall, which is "smiling face".

Steve Carraso

Steve stayed for 3 and a bit weeks and helped with some major jobs-he probably never wants to see a wire bed again because he helped to sieve a lot of soil. Steve helped to move the glasshouse. Wal made a bricked base for it and brick raised gardens inside and after renovating a lot of the glass Wal and Steve sieved dirt to fill the gardens and planted tomatoes, cucumber and a capsicum. Steve built two door frames for the toolshed and helped to brick the patio. This was a job that intervened as the contractors turned up to do the drive and kindly dug the patio space as well....so then it needed filling. Steve also played lots of games with Ami and Shannah including digging for fairies!

Monika & Galyas

Monika and Galyas wrote in the book that they did "only a few things" which is an understatement...they would get up early and go and find their own jobs to do! They tidied the garage, stacking all the odds and ends of wood. Monika oiled the outside poles with linseed oil. This darkened the poles and made them stand out nicely against the clay. Monika also prepared and papered 3 doors with the special "fusuma" paper we brought home from Japan. Galyas worked with Wal on various woodworking projects including rebuilding a double bed we got from our neighbours, finishing Damian's shelf and blocking off the top of the battery room with battens. Galyas was a real chatterbox and we enjoyed our conversations with him.

Kristen

Kristen arrived at a timely moment shortly before we moved in so she got to help move lots of stuff. We tried to sort as we went-consequently we have half a house full of "stuff" we really don't need. We will have a big garage sale soon. Kristen also waterproofed some of the adobe walls and did some bits and pieces of painting.

Charles and Domitille

Charles and Domitille helped tidy the house by putting mud on the outside-this gave the walls a much more uniform look. A major job requiring neighbour's assistance was to get their van out of the mud on the lawn!!! They sanded the kitchen floor and repainted Ami's room in a lilac colour to make it brighter.