Osmond Farm, Cambridge NZ

Another longy! Hope you've brought enough food and water to sustain you.

Wow! How the time here has began to fly as we are meeting new people and having many more new experiences. It seems that this entire trip is full of new exposures for me, which has made this trip worth all of the time and energy we have spent preparing. Through hitching we're able to meet new people, and most of them say the same thing in response to our trip: "Do it now, while you have the time, the energy, the excitement and the wonder." We may not have the money, but we are void of a lot of the responsibility that holds travelers back. This is part of our education that can't be taught in school, and should be required!

Our newest host family is absolutely wonderful. They are some of the most inviting and warm people I have ever met! Suzie and Alistair live on 3 hectacres (about 7 acres) of land, with 10 chooks (chickens), 4 cows, a big greens garden, 1 dog named Bella, and are in the midst of making adobe bricks for the new building project. They have said that the older they get, the 'greener' they become, and I beleive it! They heat their house with a woodburning stove, and are building a wood free building for Alistair's parents to live in. Adam and I have been making bricks from mud, sand, straw, and water. The process is long and intensive, but important for the bricks to be able to last and insulate. The bricks have three layers of ingredients:
1. Mud gets laid out on wooden platform, and we search through it with spades for rocks.
2. Sand gets brought over, and we kick the sand with our gumboots to distrubute it.
3. Straw, after being cut out of the bale with a chainsaw by Alistair (it's so funny to watch how they do things here!) is scattered along the prior two layers, acting as the last layer.
Then, with the Rototiller, Alistair goes through mixing everything up, adding water to congeal the mess into a slop. We follow with shovels, helping to turn the thick goo.
Lastly, the mud concoction gets made up into bricks, using a series of repeated procedures. Using water to coat the frame for the brick shape, it is then laid on a pallet (with cardboard and newspaper), then mud is piled into the square frame, and squished into the edges. It must be packed well, or the bricks can fall apart. Then the frame is removed, and the bricks are left to dry, and then are stacked. We make about 100 a day, usualy exceeding that goal. The building needs 8,000 bricks, and so far they are a little over 3,000 bricks in since mid July. That's a lot of bricks!

Along with Adam and I, there are two other wwoof-ers here. They are both from Japan,although traveling independently around the country. Tomoko, (22) and Sayshu (he points to his mouth "say" then points at his boots "shoe!" who is 57). Tomoko just left this morning, which was sad. She has stayed here for a month, and although there was a little bit of a language barrier, we became very friendly while working and cooking together. On our first day here, Adam and I went kayaking, and she made us lunch! I learned so much from her generosity, politeness, and willingness to help. Sayshu is quite the character, having wwoof-ed in a few different countries, as well as being a marathon runner. He keeps us on our toes, making lots of silly jokes and coming up with funny catch phrases.

Last night Adam and I made dinner for everyone, attempting falafel with pita, israeli salad, and hummus, as wel as honey cake for desert. It wasn't quite falafel, it seemed more like a mush that didn't really taste like anything. However, they enjoyed it, the honey cake went over well, and there was enough left over for us to have some at morning tea.
This evening I went slug hunting with Suzie (it's important because the slugs eat the plants in the garden, right down to the stalks!), dropping them into boiling water after collecting them. The slime was killer. "Slug Hunting with Suzie" would be a good band name.

If you'd like a postcard, drop me an email. Updates after this week most likely won't be as frequent, as we'll be camping and tramping and fairly unavailable. Hope everyone is well and healthy!