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.

THANK YOU BIG TIME

Thank you to all our wwoofers, we have fond memories of many of you and we really appreciate the HUGE contribution you have made to the building of our house, and friendships and the memorable quality of our life.

But at this time, I must say a special thankyou to Jeehun, Haji, Damian and Melanie, whose time frames all overlapped and added up to nearly 5 months of wwoofer time...so a BIG TIME thankyou for your contribution to bringing the house near to completion.

Melanie

Melanie's time coincided with Jeehun and Damian. Melanie could turn her hand to anything and is singlehandedly responsible for changing the house from looking like a building site to actually looking like a house. She masked and painted the kitchen, the office, the bathroom ceiling, Shannah's room and a number of doors. Melanie went to Christchurch for a few days to see a show then came back and worked at a local strawberry farm while staying on at our place. It was all just a plot to get her "R" I think.

Either that or she just got too fond of her hottie.

David

David came while Rusty was in Japan so it was great for Wal to have his company. They made significant progress on the last room, which is Wal and Rusty's bedroom. Up till now it has been the storeroom but it was cleaned out and David helped Wal plaster the walls again. Wal has since tiled the floor and put in a doorframe and it now really looks like a room.

Gemma and Andrew

Wwoofers number 73 & 74 were Gemma and Andrew, and wwoofers number 75 & 76 were Gemma and Andrew. They took a little break inbetween visits- so they got code "R" in the logbook for "Returnees"!!

Gemma helped me finish the mosaic in the lounge floor and Andrew helped Wal adjust the solar panels. They also did some painting, weeding and treeplanting and had lots of fun with the girls.

Damian

Damian came for three days as he was stranded and bored at Christchurch airport ...and ended up staying for over a month! He was here with Jeehun and Damian and we all had a fun time. Damian was skilled at carpentry so he made a huge contribution with some made to measure furniture including a wardrobe each for the girls, and some bookshelves for Shannah's birthday desk, a spice rack for Rusty and a kitchen shelf and he spent a lot of time watching paint dry...and playing with Jess...

Jeehun

Jeehun did so much in the two months he was here. The thing we will treasure the longest is the "MADE IN KOREA" toast slicer he crafted for us out of plywood. It is made to fit the bread from our breadmaker and it really helps to cut nice slices when the bread hasn't had time to cool.

Jeehun kept us entertained with a variety of magic tricks, some of the m fluent enough to leave the kids gobsmacked- especially the one where he puts the coin into his arm.

The installation of the solar hot water heater was a highlight while Jeehun was here, but he also contributed so much doing everything from lawnmowing to mudding, gardening and painting ETC, ETC, ETC

HAJI

Haji stayed nearly 2 weeks, but it seemed longer as Jeehun was here the whole of that time and then Melanie came too!

Haji helped out with a variety of jobs including cutting timber, painting, plastering, making compost and digging...I can't quite remember what?

We enjoyed Haji's quiet humour and had him on about his appetite, as you can see from the photo.

Haji also enjoyed a belated birthday party (only cos he didn't tell us on the day) and so got code "B" for "Birthday" in the logbook. It is mandatory to declare if you are having a birthday so we can make a cake and have a party!