Farm Life (on 4 x Manhattan)

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WEEK 6

Dear Lincoln, Lilliana, Leni, Juliana, Evyn, Jack, Faye, Chloe, Emerson, Lake, Rita, Violet, and Ella,

Well kids, I hardly know where to start because I have had so many amazing experiences since I last wrote to you!

This week, I went to stay with Gus (who is 7½) and Kate (who is 6) on their farm in the middle of the South Island. I flew on a little propeller plane from Napier Airport (where Fynn, Archie and Charlie dropped me off) to Christchurch in the South Island, and then got a bus to Gus and Kate’s farm. It’s called a “High Country Station” because it’s up near the mountain range. The mountains are called the Southern Alps. Now, I knew about the Alps in Europe, but I had no idea there was a similar mountain range in the Southern Hemisphere!

Gus and Kate’s dad inherited their farm from his parents, and they live there with him and their mom. I have never seen anywhere so big. Their land is 100 square miles. Manhattan Island, New York, is 22.7 square miles. So that means the farm is FOUR TIMES MANHATTAN!

The driveway, a single shingle track, to their house, is 20 miles long and it takes over 30 minutes to get to the main road. So it takes over 40 minutes to get to the nearest store. Can you imagine your mom saying, “I’m just going to the store to buy some juice,” at 7pm and she doesn’t come back until 8.30pm! For this reason, Gus and Kate’s mom stocks up on loads and loads of food. She goes to the big store about once a month to get supplies. She also grows a lot of veggies and stores meat in a huge freezer. There is no mail delivery. All their mail is delivered to the local store where they have a mailbox and they pick it up from there. At the moment, Gus and Kate go to a local primary school with 22 kids in the whole school! This means they mix up the grades so Grades 1 through 3 are in one room, and Grades 4, 5, and 6 are in another. When they are 10, Gus and Kate will go to boarding school in Christchurch like most farm kids.

When I arrived at the farm, Gus and Kate couldn’t wait to show me all their pets. They explained that there is a big difference between all the animals they keep as pets and the animals that are bred by their dad, the farmer, to take to a market to sell for meat. The animals they keep as pets all have names. The first pet they showed me was very special.

His name is Rudolf and he is a fawn, that’s a baby deer. He is so cute, and he looks like Bambi. Their dad found him caught in a fence. He had lost his mom and they couldn’t put him back amongst the other deer because if they put him into the wrong pack he could get attacked, so they decided to keep him and feed him from a bottle.

Rudolf loves Gus and Kate. He loves playing games with them. He is so gentle and puts his front legs up on Kate’s shoulders to hug her.

Next I met their cat and their horses.

Kate has a Shetland pony called Louis, and Gus has a regular pony called Abby. Kate as a couple of guinea pigs and they also have three pet calves. A calf is a baby cow.

Gus and Kate had never met anyone like me before, who didn’t eat animals. We talked about how everyone is different and everyone chooses to eat different things and when you’re a kid you eat what your parents eat (like I did) and when you’re older you can decide exactly what you want to eat. When I told them how much I love vegetables they couldn’t wait to show me their vegetable garden.

Their mom is the most amazing gardener and grows fantastic vegetables. She grows potatoes, and broccoli (my favorite), and red cabbage, and zucchini, and yellow squash, and mint, and all different types of lettuce, and rhubarb.

Kate found a worm in the garden.

Worms are important creatures to have living in your garden because they churn up the soil.

We had fun digging up potatoes and picking other vegetables and later Gus helped me chop them all up to roast them for dinner.

I thought I’d seen all the animals, but there were still more. There were some chickens (which are called “chooks” in New Zealand).

They often escape from their area and Kate has to chase them back!

Kate also checks often to see if the chooks have laid any eggs. In New Zealand when they say “eggs” it sounds like “iggs” (try saying it, it sounds really funny). They also go to sleep in a “bid” and write with a “pin.”

There are three pigs in the farm and when they are fat enough these will be used for meat to feed the family.

If you live on a farm, part of your life is growing your own food, whether it’s lettuces or pigs.

My favorite pet was their mom’s horse, Sunny. I love horses and he was one of the most beautiful horses I’ve ever seen.

One of the most important things for the farmer to do is make hay while the sun shines.

They cut down the hay and a big hay baler comes along to make it into big bales. Then the farmer loads them onto a trailer and drives them to a hay barn to stack them up. This is what they use to feed animals with in winter.

Gus and Kate love helping their dad, the farmer, make the hay.

Their dad wears special coverings over his boots to stop any hay from falling into his boots and making his feet itch.

On the farm, there are two shepherds who take care of the sheep. I saw them do a process called “drenching,” when they give the sheep medicine to make sure they don’t get sick.

I have never seen so many sheep. In New Zealand there are about 4 million people and about 40 millions sheep!

If they are in the house and Gus needs to talk to his dad who is somewhere in the middle of the field (which they call a paddock) he can always call him on the RT.

The natural beauty of Gus and Kate’s farm is unbelievable. The Southern Alps are always in view and the highest mountain in New Zealand, Mount Cook, is visible on a clear day.

I kept saying “wow” whenever I saw a new view or a new thing, which Gus said he found boring, but I explained how, for someone like me from a big city, these were new things. He had been living there so long he had grown used to all the views. I bet he would say “wow” a few times if he stood and looked up at the Statue of Liberty in New York!

All the water for the farm and the houses on it comes from a natural spring in the hillside. A recent analysis of the water showed that this is one of the purest water sources in the world. The water is so good you can drink straight out of the stream.

Although some people like to use their hands!

The lake comes right into their farm and they love to swim in it and go out on their jet boat or kayak.

Lots of wild plants grow by the lake, like these thistles.

One of the things that I really had to think carefully about was the fact that on a farm they use guns. I only knew about guns as bad things, but Gus’s dad explained that they need guns on a farm for certain emergencies. Because Gus will one day run the farm he is going to learn to use a gun. Sometimes, and ONLY when his dad is very close by, he practices holding it, but never, EVER with bullets in it.

Gus was very grown up and always listened to his father. I was very impressed with him.

Close to Gus and Kate’s house (by which I mean almost an hour away!) there is a center with a skating rink and hot pools.

In the winter there is ice-skating and in the summer they take all the ice out and make it a rollerblading rink. I love rollerblading so I was very happy. Gus was very good on his skates too. When we finished we went into the hot pools and had fun splashing around in there.

On the way back we saw some llamas playing in a field with some lambs. I’d never seen llamas before so that was exciting.

Gus and Kate’s farm is one of the most amazing places I have ever been. They are such a great family. I liked them and their mom and dad so much. It was a big challenge for me to go somewhere like their farm, but the way they treat their animals with so much love and give them such good lives impressed me, and made me think differently about a few things. If people want to eat meat that’s their choice, but I hope they only buy their meat from people like Gus and Kate’s family.

I hope to go back and see the family one day, they are wonderful people, and are so welcoming to visitors. It was a very special trip and I feel lucky to have met them.

Next week I’ll tell you all about Jimmy and Minnie, who are friends of Gus and Kate’s. And I’ll also tell you about my amazing long journey by trains and ferry from the South Island to the North Island. The whole journey took longer than it took me to fly from LA to New Zealand! But it was worth it for the amazing views.

Miss you all so much. I hope you’re all very well and I am sending you loads of love.

Susie

xxxx